


Missing Kalicia Scenes, Season 5

by randomizer



Category: The Good Wife (TV)
Genre: F/F, just a little Being Human in the last chapter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-03
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2017-12-28 08:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 31,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/989840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/randomizer/pseuds/randomizer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My plan right now is to write a missing Kalicia scene for every episode of season 5, trying to help us all through the Kalicia drought and make sense of the sudden course change from epic love to nothingness. Each chapter in my alternate universe will have five-word titles, in honor of the path that the Kings might have taken but chose not to. Your comments and advice are greatly appreciated!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Beginning of the End ("Everything is Ending")

Alicia looks at Cary through the glass, then at Will walking away with his jaunty bottle of champagne.  Sadness suddenly washes over her. Everything is ending, she thinks again to herself.  The ending with Will is of her own volition—she knows she needs to get away, to break the cycle, to face what her life seems to have become. She knows her leaving will hurt Will.  She knows she cares, but not enough.  Right now, control is more important than kindness.

Alicia looks a little her left and sees Kalinda sitting in front of her laptop, intent on the screen.  Something jumps inside her at the sight, the same odd little something that she felt after Cary announced that Robyn, not Kalinda, would be joining them at Florrick, Agos, and Associates.  She stuffs it down immediately, as she had then—whatever that feeling was, it was the opposite of “control.”  

_A hotel room.  A glass of wine.  The eerie quiet of the Minnesota woods.  And a tentative admission. “I miss this.”_

_Why did that line tear so much into her heart?_

Alicia glances again at Kalinda, who is so focused on her work that she does not even notice Cary brushing against her as he leaves. She wonders what case Kalinda is working on, now that the death row appeal is finished.  Alicia pushes down that same peculiar ache as she watches Kalinda, but she allows herself the tiniest acknowledgment that working without Kalinda in her corner might be . . . harder. They had always worked well together.

 ****

Kalinda stares at her screen, looking at Turbochap’s spread on the 10 Hottest Politicians’ Daughters.  #4 was Grace Florrick.  Kalinda has never gotten rid of her Google Alerts and Twitter trawls to find any and every mention of the name “Florrick” that whispered its way over the Internet.  She should, she knows.  Alicia has made it very clear (in her words on that night last winter, and in her lack of words since) that she wants Kalinda to stay in the colleague zone, and colleagues don’t ride in on white horses to save each other from every potential flicker of pain. But still . . . still.  She knows someone at Turbochap who owes her a favor.  She could just call . . .

Kalinda feels Cary sidling by her, his briefcase touching her shoulder.  She intentionally does not look up, knowing that he wants her to.  They haven’t really spoken since their fight, and Kalinda wants to keep it that way for just a little while longer.  She knows that Cary is primarily out for Cary; she gets it, because most of the time she’s that way herself. She doesn’t like how Cary handled the negotiations about her potential contract, but in some ways it makes things easier: she knows where she stands with Cary.  They might be friends, but she’ll never have trouble knowing where Cary ends and she begins. She might be a little angry and a little hurt, but despite all that Kalinda really does hope the best for Cary and his new firm.  She knows that he doesn’t owe Lockhart Gardner any loyalty at all: they fired him once, and Will at least has almost never appreciated him.  Besides, Cary was always a great associate to hire: young and hungry, with a shining academic pedigree, no real life outside of the office, and tons of potential.  He was never a risk, and the firm did well by him. Will and Diane would be predictably outraged when they discover that he and some of the other fourth years are leaving, but they won’t really be surprised. Will did the same thing when he left his old firm to join Stern and Diane, and some part of him is going to respect Cary for what’s he’s doing.  Both Cary and Will (and even, to some extent, Diane) are very much a part of the “screw or be screwed” culture.  Ultimately, Kalinda feels sure, the dust will settle and they’ll all be able to forgive each other and move on.

Kalinda turns back to the problem of Turbochap and their #4 hottest politician’s daughter. (She idly wonders at that grammatical structure—it’s really unclear whether the site was ranking the ten hottest politicians who just happened to have daughters who might themselves not be hot at all.  “The Ten Hottest Daughters of Politicians” would have been a lot clearer of a title. She rolls her eyes at herself—at least, when her career as an investigator crashes and burns, she’ll be able to survive as a freelance copy editor!)  She reads the  Grace Florrick blurb once again: “This Chitown sweetheart has made us, er, sit up and take notice lately. Let’s hope she’s as liberal about threesomes as her father is. The age of consent in Illinois is 17, putting its new First Daughter just fifteen months away. Consider our countdown calendar started.”  218 comments and counting, far more than the comments on any of the other daughters.

Kalinda glances up quickly at Alicia in her glass office.  Lately she only sees Alicia through a wall of glass, only hears her over the telephone. They hadn’t had a genuine conversation in months, not since Minnesota.  Kalinda doubts that they’ll ever have one again.  She steels herself against any residual sadness that such a thought might have brought her a year ago.  There is a time to fish, and a time to cut bait.  Kalinda tells herself that she is more than ready to close the Alicia Florrick chapter in her life and to move on. Working with Alicia at Lockhart Gardner is surprisingly easy, and getting easier all the time.  Perhaps they were always meant to be good colleagues, the sort of people who make each other’s work better and let it go at that.

_“Yeah.”_

_Kalinda’s heart hard raced at that single word, so full of pain and regret and—yes—a little bit of love. That one word gave her the courage to get the next two of her own out._

_“I’m sorry.”_

_Alicia looked at her directly for the first time.  “I know.”_

_Kalinda had not felt so complete, so whole, so light and so free, since the first day Blake had called her Leela.  She knew that she should have left it at that._

Kalinda frowns now at the Turbochap screen.  This would hurt Alicia, she has no doubt about it.  The mention of a threesome, and the idea of her daughter’s being implicated by Peter’s actions, would cut her to the core.  She decides in that instant, and almost before she knows what’s happening she’s on the phone with Lonnie Erikson, the online editor of Turbochap.

“I really can’t pull the Florrick paragraph now, Kalinda—it would be pretty obvious that we’re doing after-the-fact editing. Her picture has gotten a lot of comments. I _might_ be able to take the whole article down tonight. We were going to leave it there for another week, but I have something else to take its place.  How important is this to you? I know I owe you a lot for the thing with the Bulls, but we’re talking about my career here. I can take the heat, but there’s definitely going to be some heat for me to take.”  

Kalinda hesitates.  How important _is_ this to her?  At that moment, she sees Alicia coming out of her office, walking toward her.  “Hang on a minute, Lonnie.”

Alicia’s expression is neutral and vacant.  She nods at Kalinda and gives her a tight smile, turning her eyes toward the elevator as quickly as she can.  Kalinda watches the doors swallow her up, suddenly feeling exhausted.  “You know what, Lonnie?  I’ll save the favor for later—this really _isn’t_ that important.  Thanks anyway.”

 ***

As the elevator doors close Alicia glances at Kalinda, who is now saying something on her cell phone.  The prickle of feeling is back, and this time she can’t quite stuff it down before she recognizes all at once how very lonely she feels right now.  She picks up her own phone, speaks briefly to Zach, and is relieved to find that the feeling is gone once again.

 

 

 


	2. Slow Day at the NSA ("The Bit Bucket")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How geeks become shippers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I admit it--"The Bit Bucket" was made of win for me, simply because I'm just goofy in love with the two NSA geeks. According to the press release, their names are Tyler Hopkins and Jeff Delinger, and they've officially become my new OTP on the show. They make me what to throw away my morals, join the NSA, and spend my life in a glass cubicle listening in on the conversations of others. This chapter is a tribute to them, and to t-shirt-wearing geeks everywhere. (God damn, I miss Seth Cohen!)

“I think they had an affair last year.” 

Jeff glances up at Tyler, whose face is pressed against the glass wall of the adjoining cubicle. “Who?”

“Alicia and Kalinda.”

Jeff snorts as he walks into Tyler’s cube. Not for the first time, he thinks that Tyler should have been a writer instead of an NSA cyber professional.  “Why are you checking into Kalinda again?  We’re just supposed to follow Alicia Florrick and Diane Lockhart.”

“And their contacts.  Kalinda is a contact. She’s also . . . interesting.”

“We’re supposed to find a more direct link to terrorist activities.  Kalinda isn’t a terrorist.”

“No, but she’s _something_.  I’m telling you, something is off with her.  Justice did some investigating of her last year—I had them send over some of the surveillance photos they took.  Take a look.”

Jeff peers at it.  “Well, she’s hot, anyway.”

Tyler sighs.  “Yeah.”

“But there’s no way that she and Alicia ever had an affair.  Alicia is the wife of the governor-elect.  She’s as straight as they come.”

Tyler looks at Jeff.  “I just have a feeling . . . something went on between the two of them.  I mean, I’m almost positive Alicia had an affair with _someone_ last year.  Listen to this one.”

Jeff nods, a little reluctantly.  “Well, maybe.  She definitely sounds like a woman with things on her mind other than her client.  But it could have been anyone. It could have been her actual _husband_.”

Tyler remains stubborn.  “No, there’s something between the two of them.  I can tell.”

“You can tell.  Really, Kreskin?  Well, what about this one?”  Jeff goes back to his own cube, and Tyler follows.  “I just pulled this one up last week—got it.  It’s from a month or two after the one  you just played. Here.”

“If Alicia was as scared as all that, why wouldn’t she have called the woman that she was sleeping with to help find her daughter? Especially when that woman is her own law firm’s super-investigator, the one who seems to solve all of their cases singlehandedly?”

Tyler doesn’t have a good answer for that one.  Still, for the last two years he’s spent hours listening to Lockhart-Gardner conversations, with a special interest in anything that Alicia and Kalinda had to say to one another.  He’s really become frustrated lately, because these conversations have trickled almost to a stop.  But that hasn’t kept him from theorizing about their past.  He’s better than Jeff at picking up on nuances, and he’s sure that Alicia and Kalinda are more than work colleagues.

He tries again.  “I’m not saying they’re having an affair _now_.  I just think they had one and that it didn’t end well.  Here’s something from a few months after the daughter isn't kidnapped.”  He walks back to his computer. Jeff follows, hopping onto the table in Tyler’s cube and sitting cross legged.

Jeff looks at him.  “So what?”

“So _what_?  Don’t you hear it?  Alicia’s voice _catches_. She actually calls Kalinda by her _name_. Kalinda sounds _happy_.  She never sounds happy.  This is the post-breakup-but-we’re-back-on-track call!”

“You’re really a total [fangirl](http://www.apex-magazine.com/fangirl-isnt-a-dirty-word/), you know that?”

Tyler is unperturbed.  “Whatever. I’m right.”

“You are?  What about the fact that Kalinda is married too?”

“Where are you getting that? There’s no record of Kalinda’s being married.”

“How do you know that?”

Tyler looks abashed for the first time. “I kind of looked up what the Justice guys found on her.”

“Well, explain this one, then.”  Jeff peers at Tyler’s computer, pecking on a few keys. “There!  This is the one where we dropped Alicia’s half of the audio, but Kalinda’s bit is pretty clear.”

Jeff smiles triumphantly.  “See?  _Husband_.”

“Even so, there’s something about the way she talks to Alicia there . . . it’s not the tone of voice you use for a colleague.  They _had_ something. Kalinda’s practically _oozing_ in that call.”

“What do you mean, _oozing_?  You really need a long, long vacation.  And all that was from a year ago, anyway. It’s not going to help us find a solid Lockhart Gardner terrorist connection right _now_. And that's, you know, sort of our job.”

Tyler ignores this—there would be plenty of time for actual work later.  “I just can’t quite pin down when I think they slept together, and when it actually ended.”

“Oh, other than _that_ , you’ve got it all figured out. Don’t you think that it’s a tiny bit odd that Alicia doesn’t seem to give a damn about Kalinda?  I mean, if they did have an affair, and if they’re being smothered with post-breakup f-e-e-e-lings, wouldn’t you think that Alicia might, I don’t know, ACT like it?”

“Well,  she’s not the type to show anything. She’s a close-to-the-vest person.  But she cares.  Check this one out—it’s just a day or two after the oozing one.”

Jeff looks at Tyler. “And I say again, louder this time—huh? Kalinda’s looking for a key.  This isn’t exactly the stuff of an ABC melodrama.”

Tyler wants to shake him.  “What, you don’t hear it?  Alicia doesn’t want Kalinda to be dead!  For Alicia, that’s practically as good as an ‘I love you.’ And Kalinda knows it.  Check out that ‘always’ at the end.  I mean, it’s awesome!”

Jeff squints at the screen in front of the two of them.   “What’s this? It’s from the same day as the ‘always.’ Why do you have that one marked?  It’s not between Alicia and Kalinda.”

“No, that one is just for background. It’s just one of Alicia’s so-called friendships ending.  That woman can’t keep a friend to save her life. I just think it’s kind of funny—I mean, she has Kalinda oozing all over the place, but she still seems to look everywhere except right in front of her nose.”

“Except when they were having the affair.”

“Right.   Except then.  They had an affair, they had a fight, and Alicia’s just taking a lot longer to get over it than Kalinda is.”

Jeff snorts.  Never in a million years could anything like that be true.  “So let’s hear the ‘background’ call.  We might as well declare this whole afternoon a work-free zone.”

Jeff winces.  “Simpatico. Ouch.”

“Yeah.  Poor Alicia. I never liked that Maddie.”

Jeff has become interested in all this in spite of himself. “So what’s going on between Alicia and Kalinda lately?  I’ve been focusing more on the calls between Will and Alicia, and Alicia and Peter.”

“Wouldn’t have thought you’d be so mainstream.”

Jeff glares, and Tyler relents. “Well, last year the two of them really seemed to be getting better—there were more calls, and they sounded more like friends and less like angry ex-lovers.  Here’s this one, for instance.”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting some lesbian subtext from _that_ call?  It’s totally normal.”

“Well, there’s a little bit of a strained something going on, but yeah, I think that’s about as normal as these two ever get. But that’s the weird thing—after all that gradual thawing, they’ve barely talked on the phone for the past six months, and when they have, it’s almost always been just about work.”

“So what’s your theory?”

“I think they slept together again, and one or the other is running scared. But whatever happened, even Kalinda isn’t as oozy as she’s always been. Here’s one of the last non-work conversations we have between the two of them.”

Jeff gets it immediately.  “Yeah.  She’s not jumping quite as quickly, is she?”

“No. And I don’t like it. This isn’t good.”

“Well, not much you can do about it beyond your usual garden-variety stalking.”  

Tyler grunts, suddenly noticing the systems admin approaching.  “Suit.”

Jeff jumps back and steps into his own cube. Time to get back to work.

 ****

Seven hundred miles away, mercifully unaware of either Tyler or Jeff, Kalinda Sharma walks into a crowded bar. It’s not one of her usual haunts, but she’d been here a few months ago and she's hoping to run into that massage therapist again. Before she has time to look around, she is startled when an older woman wearing sunglasses flags her down from a table.

“You work at Lockhart Gardner, don’t you?  With Alicia Florrick?”

Kalinda nods, unnerved without knowing exactly why. There’s something a little familiar about this woman.  When she takes off the sunglasses, it becomes clear. “You’re Alicia’s mother, Veronica.”

“Yes.  And I believe you’re Kalinda Sharma.  My son Owen mentioned you to me a few times.”

Kalinda thinks about this—she has never met Owen, and she wonders why he might be discussing her with his mother. She decides simply to smile and say nothing.

Veronica sips her margarita and looks at Kalinda a little blearily.  “She’s not happy, you know.  She hasn’t been happy in a long, long time.”

Kalinda decides that this isn’t a conversation she wants to have right now. “I really have to . . .”

“She’s a hard person to love—she always has been. Owen was easy.  I don’t mean she isn’t lovable.  I mean that she just makes it hard on the people who happen to love her.  Never wants to talk, never admits when she makes a mistake, never _gives_. That’s probably why I lent her the money, really.  Money makes it easier.”

Kalinda looks at her sharply.  “Money?”

“Oh, I’m just talking. Don’t pay any attention to me.”  Veronica suddenly seems to snap to attention. “Why don’t you join us?  Alicia will be meeting me here in a few minutes.”

Kalinda shakes her head, smiles, and somehow manages to leave the bar in time to avoid one of the most awkward encounters ever.  Two things that Veronica just told her are echoing in her head.  _Money makes it easier._   Why does Alicia suddenly need money?  She’s a partner now, her buy-in has already been taken care of.  _Never wants to talk, never admits when she makes a mistake, never_ gives _._ And suddenly, Kalinda is back to that night in Minnesota almost a year ago.

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“I know.”_

_After talking about their case for a little while longer, both women gradually fall silent.  Kalinda takes a sip of wine and for once in her life speaks without considering the potential ramifications._

_“Are you sorry too?”_

 


	3. Tachypsychia, Time Travel, and Telepathy ("A Precious Commodity")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "A Precious Commodity" was very, very sad, and it also dangled a tiny bit of Kalicia in front of us in the form of Kalinda's shocked reaction to the revelation that Alicia is leaving with Cary. (And, as sweetjamielee mentioned to me, if we can't actually have a scene with Alicia and Kalinda in the same room, at least this week Alicia's NAME was in the same room as Kalinda!) So brace yourself after the funloving geeks from last week: this missing scene is pretty angsty.

Intent on her Blackberry, Alicia isn’t looking forward as she exits the ladies room.  She doesn’t see that Kalinda is entering at the exact same moment, frowning over some scribbles in her orange notebook. The two women collide with a force that makes Alicia gasp.  She and Kalinda stand there in the doorway, inches apart, looking at each other directly without the wall of glass that has provided shelter for so many uncomfortable months. Neither says a word.

To celebrate the end of exams, Alicia, Will and a few of their 2L friends once spent a weekend at a B & B in the mountains of Virginia. On their way back to Georgetown, they hit a particularly suicidal deer who leaped suddenly in front of their car.  Years later, what Alicia remembers most about the incident is the curious way that time slowed to a crawl, how drowsily Will seemed to turn the steering wheel, how languidly the deer slid across the road in a lazy arc.  She knows that it probably wasn’t possible, not really, but she absolutely recalls the deer looking right into her eyes for what seemed like hours before it finally died, with shock and horror, softness and gradual acceptance and then . . . a nothingness that seemed to make time return back to its normal pace. She later learned that what had happened to her actually was a phenomenon known as “tachypsychia”: a neurological condition that alters the perception of time, usually induced by physical exertion, drug use, or a traumatic event.  Predictably, Alicia was relieved to discover the scientific facts behind the experience, but even a Greek name and a soothing phrase like “neural transmitters” never fully erased the memory of that deer, those eyes, and that night. Still, she hasn’t consciously thought of any of it for years.

Looking into Kalinda’s eyes right now, eyes currently radiating every emotion that Alicia has ever felt and a great many that she has yet to feel, the memory of that deer floats back. Alicia has become so adept at _not_ looking at Kalinda that finding herself gazing straight into her face, at really seeing her after so many months (so many years) of trying not to, almost makes her stagger from the weight of it.  For the second time in her life (odd, really, that it didn’t happen the afternoon she stood at the drycleaners learning about Peter and Amber—perhaps that wasn’t as much of a shock as it should have been), Alicia knows what it feels like to have a single moment go on and on in the endless space between her heartbeats.

. . . It’s four years ago, and she’s seeing Kalinda for the first time, hunched over the computer in Alicia’s tiny new office, her dark eyes scornful and judgmental. _She doesn’t like me_ , Alicia thinks.  But then, it seems that she does.  The “calm down” note in court.  The approving nods and half-smiles. That first shot of tequila burning her throat.  The laughter and the lightness. That feeling of knowing that someone has her back, absolutely and without qualification. The odd sense that she actually has a friend who finds her _interesting_ , who sees through her façade and the fact that she is the wife of Peter Florrick, who knows and understands Alicia herself and wants to spend time with that person.

. . . It’s three years ago, and Kalinda is giving her the change of address card to her new apartment, gazing at Alicia with a heartbreakingly tentative trust that Alicia can never quite forget even now. She’s teasing Kalinda about it, feeling lighter and happier than she had felt in the two years since Peter’s scandal, in the five years since their marriage had grown colder, in the fifteen years since she had quit the law. She’s feeling her heart break all over again when she realizes that all of it had been a lie, that what she had thought she had with Kalinda had never been real at all.

. . . It’s two years ago, and she’s spending her days not looking at Kalinda and her nights with Will trying to ignore the sadness that has grown into a living entity.  She’s getting used to never seeing Kalinda’s eyes, never wondering about what she might be doing or feeling. She finds that she’s good at being angry, the way she’s been good at most things in her life that she’s tried. She enjoys her own coldness, enjoys watching Kalinda’s eyes drop when she walks by. She does not enjoy having been such a fool, of course, but she knows that it will never happen again. And then Grace is missing, and for an afternoon she can’t think of enjoying anything at all. And after Grace is safe, after she learns that Kalinda is the one who found her, she’s not even allowed to keep the satisfaction of that righteous anger any longer.  Now there are times when she has to look at Kalinda again, even times when she actually must _see_ her. The halting attempts at conversation about work. The offer of the beer that makes Alicia recoil as if bitten, only to have one of those inconvenient _seeing_ moments when she realizes how much Kalinda has put on the line in that too-warm bottle. The moment when Alicia finds herself weakening and swivels the bar stool around to try to regain some of what they used to have and would never have again.

. . . It’s last year, and there are more smiles, more conversations, more drinks after work. It’s not the same, it’s a shadow of what it once was, but Alicia finds herself letting it happen. Struggle as she might, Alicia can’t stop herself from worrying about Kalinda, from wondering about her relationship with Nick and what her life—what Leela’s life—had been like before Lockhart Gardner, before Peter, before Chicago. The sadness of that night in Minnesota, sipping wine and thinking about the past, of knowing that Kalinda was sorry but also knowing that sorry would never be enough for them. And then the return of some of the anger that comes back to her like an old friend at Kalinda’s question: _Are you sorry, too?_ She, who has nothing whatsoever to be sorry for, who has done more than any person in the world might have expected. Even as she welcomes the anger, she winces as she sees the light die from Kalinda’s eyes even before she can get a single word out. She wants to be angry because she is afraid of what she might feel if anger ever left her entirely.

. . . It’s now, and she and Kalinda are looking at each other in this moment that will never end, silently talking as they have always been able to do.

 _Alicia_ : You know.

 _Kalinda_ : Yes. You didn’t tell me.

 _Alicia_ : I couldn’t. I had responsibilities . . . I couldn’t. I didn’t want it to be true. I want to leave, but I don’t want to go.

 _Kalinda_ : If you had asked me, I would have gone with you and Cary. 

 _Alicia_ : But the money . . .

 _Kalinda_ : Screw the money. You know I would have gone.

 _Alicia_ : I’m not sure I wanted you to come. I’m not sure I _don’t_ want you to come.

 _Kalinda_ : I know. 

 _Alicia_ : Do you need to understand me _all the time_? You taught me to ask for what I want. You told me not to stand around waiting for good things to happen to me.

 _Kalinda_ : You’re right. I did.

 _Alicia_ : Kalinda . . . I’m sorry.  I _was_ sorry. I _am_ sorry.

But, as she sees Kalinda’s eyes deaden, as the moment finally ends and time returns back to something measured in seconds and minutes and hours and days, as Kalinda leaves and the door swings shut, she knows that once again there isn’t anything left but the nothingness.

 


	4. An Affair Not To Remember ("Outside the Bubble")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Outside the Bubble" was an enjoyable episode in many ways--Christine Baranski was fantastic, and if she finds something better this season for her Emmy reel I'll be surprised--but I was disappointed that there really wasn't ANY Kalicia at all, especially after last week's drama of having Kalinda find out that Alicia is leaving with the fourth-year idiots. Since I also found Kalinda's sexploits in the office with the crazy paralegal really OOC, I tried to do some retconning in this week's chapter to explain it.

“You’ll have to dig deeper.”

Kalinda looks at Elsbeth. “Why? I thought we were fine.”

Elsbeth starts to pace, circling a somewhat bemused Kalinda.  “We _were_ fine—finding out that Chrissy had accused her boss at Hoffman Ross of taking his clothes off in front of her was just the slime we needed. But now . . . how many pairs of those boots do you have?”

“How many?  A few. Why?”

“Are they all the same color? They make you look taller.  I really wish I were taller. Sometimes at the supermarket I just . . .”

Kalinda tries to catch her eye again. “I should dig deeper?”

Elsbeth shakes herself and points her finger at Kalinda. “Yes.  Exactly! I was thinking the same thing!”

“And the problem is?”

“Howard Lyman. The video from his laptop that you found on the server . . . it’s out.”

Kalinda looks at her. “Out? How do you know?”

“Someone emailed it to me. You’ll need to find out who did that, of course, but the most important thing is to find enough slime to stop this slime in its tracks.”

Kalinda is silent for a second or two.  “I might . . . have something else.”

Elsbeth stops pacing and turns to face Kalinda eagerly. “You do?  Already? How much do they pay you here, anyway?”

Kalinda shakes her head slightly, ignoring that. “Would it help you if we could prove that Chrissy _herself_ had sex in the office?”

Elsbeth considers this. “Well, that _would_ be good slime. It doesn’t exactly prove that she couldn’t have been sexually harassed—having sex doesn’t preclude harassment—but it should embarrass her enough that she wouldn’t want to go on with the case.  I like it! But how are you going to prove something like that?”

Kalinda glances away, and then stares steadily at Elsbeth. “Direct testimony.”

“And how will you get the person in question to give us that testimony?”

“I would be the one giving the testimony.”

Elsbeth cocks her head. “I’m confused. Did you witness this encounter?”

Kalinda sighs. “I . . . participated in the encounter.  Or rather, the encounters.”

“You didn’t!  With that one?  Your hair . . . and her hair?  And those eyes of hers?  I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it.  It’s true.”

“Kalinda . . . I know how loyal you are to Lockhart/Gardner, but lying under oath . . .  that’s not something you want to do.”

“I wouldn’t be lying.  There were . . . extenuating circumstances. And it only lasted a week.”

Elsbeth shakes her head. “If you say so, I have to use it.  When did this occur?  What happened exactly?”

Kalinda looks down, as if the memory were unpleasant. “It was a little less than a year ago, last November. Chrissy had seemed attracted to me before that, but I didn’t pay much attention to her—she’s very young, and I didn’t think she really knew what she wanted. But then, I decided to . . . get to know her a little better.”

“You ‘got to know her better’ in the office?”

“Yes. Over the course of the week, we had sex multiple times, entirely in the office after hours.”

“And where did these encounters take place?”

“Mostly in the copy room and the pantry, and occasionally in the bull pen.”

“And it ended after a week?”

Kalinda nods. “Yes. I decided that it wasn’t a relationship I was interested in pursuing.”

Elsbeth shakes her head. “Kalinda, I have to say . . . that’s really hard for me to believe. You don’t seem like the type to . . .”

Kalinda interrupts her. “I’m not the type to. As I said, there were . . . reasons.”

“Reasons that you don’t care to share?”

“Reasons that aren’t relevant to my testimony.”

Elsbeth nods. “You’re right. None of that matters to the case. I’ll call Viola and set up a meeting.”

Kalinda watches her go, now forced to think about one of the many things that she’s pushed from her mind over the past year.  She remembers her brief affair with Chrissy all too well.  After sharing Alicia’s hotel room in Minnesota, Kalinda had come back to Chicago with an inconvenient number of feelings: embarrassment, regret, longing, and finally the one that stuck with her the longest and that felt the most right: pure, unmitigated anger. She took that anger to one her favorite bars, intent on downing a few shots and finding someone to help her forget about Alicia Florrick forever.

Chrissy had been there, looking bug-eyed and uncomfortable while trying to catch the eye of anyone and everyone. Kalinda felt her stare but didn’t look up.

Chrissy wasn’t taking the obvious hint. She approached Kalinda and sat down tentatively on the empty barstool beside her. “Kalinda?”

Kalinda looked up. “Yeah?”

Chrissy flushed and looked away. “Hi . . . I’m  . . . hi. I see you got back from Minnesota all right. I heard we settled the case.”

“Yes. It was all settled.” Kalinda said this flatly, hoping that Chrissy would realize that conversation was unlikely and leave. She didn’t.

“I . . . can I buy you another drink?”

Kalinda looked at her then.  What did any of it matter? “What do you want, Chrissy?”

“Want? Nothing. Just . . . a drink.”

“Nobody comes into a place like this who just wants _a drink_. Don’t play with this if you’re not ready for what comes next.”

Chrissy looked right at her. “I’m ready for what comes next.”

“We’ll see.  Meet me back at the office in fifteen minutes.”

“The _office_?”

“Yes. What we’re going to do doesn’t belong in my apartment.”

Chrissy stared at her apprehensively, then nodded and left the bar without a word. Kalinda gulped down her last shot and followed.

The next week passed in a passionless blur. Angry sex can be the best sex there is, but only when both participants have equal levels of fury.  This was different; this was Kalinda pretending that Chrissy was someone else entirely, someone she hated and loved and couldn’t scrub out of her psyche no matter how hard she might try, and this was Chrissy simply trying to keep up with something she couldn’t possibly understand but felt like the best sex she’d ever have in her life. After about a week of these nights, Kalinda came to herself enough to feel ashamed. She broke it off with Chrissy as kindly as she possibly could, and she felt that Chrissy was equal parts disappointed and relieved.  Kalinda was sorry, but at least she had succeeded at getting rid of a tiny portion of her Alicia anger. That was something, at least.

Kalinda had thought it ironic when Chrissy’s lawsuit accused just about everyone at Lockhart Gardner for sexual harassment _except_ her.  In fact, she was probably the only one who was guilty of it in any real sense.

 ***

“They’re dropping the case?” Alicia looks at Elsbeth in wonderment.  “How did you manage that, after they got hold of Howard’s ‘sit on Daddy’s lap’ video?”

“Kalinda. Isn’t it always Kalinda around here?”

“What did she find?”

“She didn’t _find_ anything. Apparently she herself had an affair with Chrissy, and the two of them had sex multiple times in the office.  I think Chrissy was mortified enough to drop the whole thing rather than letting all that come out.”

“Kalinda . . . I don’t understand. Kalinda _told_ you that?”

“Yes. Why?”

“It’s just . . . it doesn’t sound like Kalinda at all.  When did she say this happened?”

“Last November.  Why?”

Alicia has an odd expression on her face. “Nothing. It doesn’t matter.” 

Elsbeth looks at Alicia curiously.  “You don’t like it, do you?”

“What, I . . .  no, I don’t care. It’s not great for the firm’s reputation for people to have after-hours sex in the office, but . . . it’s fine.”

“No.  You don’t _like_ it.  What is it with you and Kalinda, anyway?”

“Nothing.  We’re . . . we were . . . we’re friends.”

“You don’t seem to do a lot of talking, for friends.” Elsbeth’s cell phone suddenly rings. “Oh, there’s Viola.  Gotta go talk through some of the details.” She rushes away, and Alicia watches her go. One of those annoying, uncomfortable, unidentifiable Kalinda-feelings is clearly about to return with the aura of a migraine. She braces herself for what she knows is coming and wonders if these peculiar aches are ever going to leave her alone.

 


	5. The One With Kalicia Parallels ("Hitting the Fan")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I admit that "Hitting the Fan" was a fantastic episode of television--it deserves every bit of the accolades being heaped upon it by the critics. I've never seen Josh Charles better, and if he doesn't get an Emmy nomination out of this episode it will be a criminal snub. But at the same time, the underuse of Kalinda was infuriating, especially when that first scene was just CRYING out for Kalinda's being there to see Alicia's ousting. (She was "at home"? The hell?) It's now 18 episodes since the two have had a conversation, and it's getting close to absurd. Ironically--or perhaps not ironically--this episode was also stuffed with Kalicia callbacks. I make good use of those callbacks in this chapter, even though at the same time they irritate me greatly.

The minute she steps off of the elevator, Kalinda knows. She has always been able to sense Alicia’s presence, a skill which had proven invaluable when she needed to help, and even more so when she needed to stay away. Right now, the lack of Alicia is palpable. She tries to conjure up some semblance of anger to combat the familiar empty ache.

When Will tells her, she can’t find it in herself to make a show of appearing surprised.  She feels Will’s glance, knows that he is trying to assess her as an ally or an enemy.

“Now here’s what I need to know. Are you leaving with her?”

Kalinda hesitates.  _Are you leaving with her?_ She understands exactly why Will asks it thus, rather than the more logical “are you leaving with them?” He, more than anybody else, more than Cary, knows that this question can only be phrased one way, despite the fact that, by all appearances and in actual truth, she and Cary are officially closer than she and Alicia have been for a long, long time.  But Will has always understood the thrall that Alicia had on her, because he is pulled by it himself.

“With Alicia? Um, no.”

“Because if you are, you need to leave right now.”

“I’m not.”

“David Lee says you are.”

“Well, David Lee says a lot of things.”

“You’re friends with Alicia and she didn’t tell you about leaving?”

Kalinda steels herself, not allowing Will to see that this question is the very one that has been echoing inside her for the last week. “No. Clearly I-I wasn’t friend enough.”  Images come to her, unbidden and unwelcome. Putting in extra hours on Alicia’s cases during her first year. Telling her that the decision between her and Cary was about to be made. Finding Grace. Trading information with Dana to prevent Alicia’s being disbarred. ( _Don’t think about Nick. Don’t think about Nick. Don’t think about Nick._ ) None of it had been enough. Fate had decreed what sort of friend she was destined to be long before she had ever even met Alicia Florrick.

Later that day, Will calls Kalinda and asks her to download the video surveillance footage of Alicia in the elevator and lobby.

“I want to see if she pulls out another phone, and I want to know if she leaves the building right away or meets anyone before that.”

Kalinda is dubious about the value of any of this, but she understands that Will is in no mood for rational discussion. She knows that he just wants action on many fronts right now, whether it makes sense or not. “When do you need to see it?”

Will hesitates. “I don’t need to see the footage itself. Just give me the facts.  If you see anything that could help Lockhart Gardner retain its clients, I want to hear about it. Let me know by the end of the day.”

Kalinda makes the calls she needs to make, and in about an hour she has ten minutes of footage downloaded to her laptop.  There is no audio, but the video is clear. From her angle (above and to the side), she sees Will’s impassive face as the elevator doors close. Alicia keeps her composure for another couple of seconds before crumpling into tears.

Kalinda freezes the video, feeling sick with the ridiculous sensation of being forced to watch herself die. Suddenly, it’s two and a half years ago and she has become Alicia. All she knows right now is that endless moment of being banished from Alicia’s life, her own unsteady walk to the elevator, and the feeling of relief when its doors finally close to give her the fleeting privacy of collapsing, just as Alicia had done this morning.  (Kalinda has never reflected on the fact that there somewhere _is_ video evidence of her own elevator ride that morning, and she makes a mental note to find it and destroy it.)  She hadn’t cried like that in years, and she hasn’t cried like that since.  It’s not something that she wants to think about, especially now that it’s perfectly clear how little Alicia actually thinks about her.

But Kalinda has also never seen Alicia cry before, and watching that stirs some of the protective instincts that she wishes to be rid of forever. Will was the injured party here, but Will would survive: Kalinda knows how much he loves Alicia, but he loves Lockhart Gardner even more. HIs fury at her betrayal would see him through.  Alicia needed to leave for many reasons, most of which Kalinda knows or suspects. But the guilt at what she had done was going to get her in the end.  There would not be anything that Kalinda could do to keep her from that pain even if, for some vestigial reason, she still wanted to try.

 

***

At the end of the very long day, Will and Kalinda sit together in Will’s office, drinking scotch.  (It’s always scotch with Will, just as it had always been tequila with Alicia. Kalinda wonders about that for a moment.)  

Will swirls his drink around and looks at Kalinda. “Did you get a chance to go over that surveillance footage?”

“Of Alicia?” Kalinda does not know why she wants to say her name, when she and Will both know perfectly well about whom they’re speaking.

Will nods, looking into his drink.

“I did. There was nothing surprising there. She left the elevator and met Cary in the lobby.”

Will sighs. “I don’t know what I thought you might see. I just don’t want to leave any potential stone unturned. We’re coming up to a bad time now.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

They sit in a comfortable silence, which becomes a little less comfortable when Will asks her exactly how long she had known that Alicia and Cary were leaving.  His expression does not change, because of course he has already guessed that she had withheld information from him.

“Kalinda, I’m building this firm into the biggest in the country, starting today. I need to know who I can trust.”

“You can trust me.”

“Are you sure? Because I’m going to destroy the competition. Can you do that?”

 _Can you do that?_ Kalinda remembers the identical question asked to her a year and a half ago.  ( _Alicia, pale and determined.  “I can’t be the only one being forthcoming. I can’t be the only one being honest. Can you do that?”_ ) Could she do that? She knew that she had wanted to, wanted desperately to mold herself into Alicia’s vision of how a friend ought to act. She also knew that she had largely failed the honesty test when Nick blustered back into her life. ( _When he came back because Alicia had called him_.) The only time, in fact, that Kalinda remembers really being honest with Alicia after that conversation was that night in the Minnesota hotel, and of course that had ended terribly. But now, with this question from Will, she is sure that she _can_ do that.  She can make Alicia her enemy. She can work with Will to destroy Florrick, Agos and Associates and forget Alicia forever.  

“Yeah.” As it had before, that single word rings in her ears. She imagines a clap of thunder and flash of lightning as, once again, her soul is set on a new and not overly welcome course.

 

***

As Kalinda is leaving Lockhart Gardner for the night, her cell phone buzzes.  She sees who it is, sighs, and answers.

“Robyn.”

“Hi, Kalinda. Listen, can we talk for a few minutes? I’m at that bar we went to that time.”

“I really shouldn’t, Robyn. We’re not colleagues anymore.”

“So? We can still hang out as friends, can’t we?”

Friends. Kalinda never wants to hear that word again.  But for some reason, she hears herself agreeing to meet Robyn in ten minutes.

 

***

With Robyn, it’s always been beer.  Kalinda almost smiles to herself. Robyn looks over at Kalinda and does smile.  “So.  We did it.”

“Yeah. You did.”

“It’s going to be weird working without you.”

Kalinda looks at her. She has always liked Robyn. “You’ll be fine. You’re a good investigator.”

“Maybe I am, but I’m not going to be able to beat you in anything.”

Kalinda smiles at that. “Listen, Robyn—do a good job for her . . . for them.”

Robyn furrows her brow. “What do you mean?”

“Just . . . do a good job. Help her win.”

“Well, of course, that’s what I’m supposed to do, isn’t it?”

Kalinda sighs.  “Alicia can be . . . she might not always tell you exactly what she needs. You might need to guess.  And you should watch her in court sometimes, just in case something comes up.”

“Watch her in court?  I’m an investigator.  I don’t think I really need to show up in court.  Unless they ask me to, of course.”

Kalinda starts to feel a little ridiculous—beer on top of scotch will do that to a person—but she continues on nonetheless. “Even if they don’t ask you, you should go if you have time. It’s good to be supportive sometimes.”

Robyn gives her an odd look. “Kalinda . . . Alicia doesn’t really like me, you know. She never has.”

For some reason, just hearing that makes Kalinda feel better. She takes another sip of beer and changes the subject. She knows that the time has more than come to stop worrying about a person who clearly has moved on to other things.

 

****

**Twelve Hours Ago**

“You and Cary are leaving, and you’re taking some clients with you?”  Will’s voice is eerily calm.

“Yes.”

“And you decided this three weeks ago?” Will is looking out the window. Alicia is relieved that she can’t see his face right now.

“Yes. I’m sorry.”

“Of course. That helps.”

And with that, Alicia is flung from this scene to another confrontation, to another apology. It’s suddenly two and a half years ago, and she has become Kalinda.

_“You lied to me. You said ‘that’s not true’ about being with him.”_

_“Yes. I’m sorry.”_

_“Ok, thanks. Now that we’ve clear_ that _up . . .”_

Alicia feels sick at the unexpected memory, understanding far more than she had ever wanted to understand. But just as suddenly it’s now, it’s Will, and she needs to finish what she started. Whatever else now might be, it is definitely not the time to be thinking about Kalinda.

 


	6. Lawyers, Guns, and (No) Money ("The Next Day")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So, "The Next Day" was a bit of a letdown after the sheer perfection of "Hitting the Fan." I can't believe we have multiple episodes in store for us of Will's odious new girlfriend. The behind-the-scenes-shenanigans theory of the separation of Alicia and Kalinda remains intact: the idea that the one meeting that Kalinda attended is the one time Alicia was in court was just absurd, especially when that scene in which Kalinda was questioned would have been about ten times more dramatic if Alicia were there than it was with just Cary. Dammit, guys--stop it with this shit. If you think we're not noticing, you're wrong. Grow up and act like professional actors and writers, and tell us the story that you were always planning to tell.
> 
> There. I feel better. This week's chapter is a little bit of fluff, and I hope you enjoy it. For a much darker, crackier, less PG 13 look at an encounter between Grace and Kalinda, check out my pal Black Knight's hilarious [Goodbye](http://archiveofourown.org/works/991507).

Kalinda freezes when she sees the name “Alicia” flashing on her buzzing cell phone. They haven’t spoken at all since Alicia and Cary left Lockhart Gardner. She hates the way her pulse quickens at the sight, despises how she can’t help but tap “answer” instead of “ignore.”

“Hello?”

“Um, is this Kalinda?”

It isn’t her, it’s someone else. Kalinda pays no attention to the little gut-punch at this unfamiliar voice, the tiny echo in miniature of what she had felt when she first learned that Alicia was leaving.

“Who is this?”

“Grace . . . Florrick. I’m using my mom’s cell phone.”

Now Kalinda has yet another feeling to ignore—fear. No, panic. Has something happened to Alicia? Through a tremendous effort of will, she manages to keep her voice steady. 

“Is anything wrong?”

“What? Oh . . . no.  Sorry.  No. I . . . just wanted to ask you something.”

The barely-suppressed anger that smolders below the surface at every thought of Alicia comes bubbling up now. Why on earth is Grace Florrick calling her? To the best of her knowledge, they have not spoken in the two years since she had rescued the girl from being baptized. She remains silent, willing Grace to get this over with quickly. But when the silence goes on for a few seconds too long, she relents into speech—letting a Florrick suffer unduly is something that she’ll just have to work herself up to in the future.

“Yes?”

“I, well, my mom told me once that you give people lessons in how to shoot guns.”

Of all the conversations with which Kalinda had though she might end her day, this particular one would have been second-to-last, right before discussing her views on same-sex marriage with the Pope. She wonders, not for the first time, how Alicia Florrick had come to have such a peculiar daughter.

“On occasion, yes.”

“I, um, I want to learn to shoot one. How much do you charge?”

Kalinda thinks that there are few ways that the situation could become any odder. “You couldn’t afford me.”

“I have a hundred dollars. Would that be enough for one lesson?”

“Grace . . . what’s going on? Are you in some kind of trouble?” She listens to Grace breath on the other end of the phone.

“No. I just want to know how it feels.”

Something inside of Kalinda twitches at those words. Unwillingly, she remembers very well what it was like to be sixteen years old, wanting to know how so many things felt, including the power of a gun. 

“Does your mother know about this?”

Grace hesitates. “I told her that I wanted to shoot a gun someday. I didn’t tell her that I was going to call you. I just want to do this on my own.”

Alicia would hate this, Kalinda thinks to herself.  She would hate this for so many, many reasons. The thought pleases her, and she is happy to feel anything that isn’t sorrow or sympathy when her mind flickers toward Alicia. Enjoyment of Alicia’s theoretical discomfort is definitely progress. She hears herself giving an address and telling Grace to meet her at the shooting range tomorrow afternoon at 4:00.

***

Kalinda is startled when she sees Grace the next day. Even the web site with the pictures of the ten hottest daughters of politicians hadn’t prepared her for quite how much Grace has changed in the last two years. She isn’t Alicia-gorgeous of course—not many people are—but she does have something of her mother about her. Kalinda feels another of those unwelcome pangs at the sight.

“Hi.” Grace looks uncomfortable, but she clearly wants this enough to have shown up nonetheless.  “I have your money right here.”

“Keep it.” Kalinda is not about to accept money from Alicia’s daughter for a firearms lesson.  “The first lesson is always free.”

Grace looks relieved. Kalinda talks to her about guns and shooting for a couple of minutes, making sure that Grace understands something of the basic mechanics of what they are about to do before handing her the gun.  When she finally does, Grace touches it as if it were a snake. Kalinda smiles a bit to herself.

“Now, the most important thing is to concentrate on the trigger.  You’ll find that there’s a tendency of your hand muscles to move in tandem with your fingers—you need to try to resist that tendency. Your forefinger has to squeeze independently of everything else.”

Grace’s eyes are wide. “So . . . as soon as I touch the trigger, the gun will fire?”

Kalinda smiles outwardly at that. “Yeah, that’s the idea. You want to put almost no pressure at all on trigger. Just concentrate on the center of the target. Now slowly, carefully, raise the gun, make your finger independent of your wrist and arm, and squeeze.”

Grace does, and the sound of the gun startles Kalinda even more than it does Grace.  She has managed to hit the target but not the drawing of the person on it. Grace looks both disappointed and exhilarated. “Can I try that again? I think I can do it better next time.”

Kalinda nods. “Try to squeeze a little more indifferently next time. You did a good job getting your finger to work independently, but you need less emotion when you squeeze the trigger, and even less pressure.  Don’t _feel_ anything when you shoot—just do it. Raise your arm now and go for it.”

 _Bam_. This time, Grace does hit the sketched head on the target, and she looks very pleased. Kalinda nods, and Grace flushes slightly at the implied praise. After three more shots, each a little better than the one before, she puts down the gun and looks at Kalinda. “Thank you.”

Kalinda hesitates. “Grace . . . why are you doing this?”

Grace looks away. “I just wanted to try something that was _mine_ , something that I know that Mom or Dad or Zach would never understand. They all think of me as one thing, but that’s not what I am, or all that I am.”

Kalinda gets that: the Leela whom she had started out as in life was nothing at all like the Kalinda whom she has become. She wonders exactly what she’s supposed to say to Grace; she’s never really understood kids at all, and talking to the daughter of Alicia Florrick is completely out of her league. She decides simply to nod.

Grace nods back, seemingly glad that no further conversation was going to develop. “Thanks for this, Kalinda. I don’t know why I called you. I mean, my mother once mentioned that you gave gun lessons to her boss, and I just remembered you from when you gave me a ride back from the church that time . . .”

“It’s ok.” Kalinda interrupts her. “You can call me again if you ever want to.”

“I’d like that. Maybe we could come back here some time?”

“Maybe. By the way, how is your mother doing?” Kalinda asks the question casually, even though her heart is doing the ridiculous pounding that happens all too often when she mentions Alicia in conversation. 

“She’s . . . ok, I guess. Busy. All of the lawyers in her new firm are working out of our apartment. She’s kind of driving me crazy, trying to keep me from talking to any of them.”

 _Does she ever talk about me at all?_   Kalinda thinks this, but does not say it out loud.  Instead, she picks up her own gun, sites at the target, and squeezes the trigger calmly and indifferently.  _Bam_.


	7. Owen and His Big Mouth ("The Next Week")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't have to tell the twelve people reading this fic that I'm getting very, very tired of how marginalized Kalinda is from ANYTHING and EVERYONE that matters on this show. She's not having scenes with Alicia, and she's barely having scenes with anyone else. Even aside from all that, "The Next Week" was a big meh for me: the Zach/Grace storyline was dull and improbable, and Owen's little field trip to L/G was out of character and something that Alicia really WOULD kill him for doing. The case, which was the most interesting part of the episode, never was resolved--I'm assuming that they'll pick it up again, but with this show, who knows? I didn't have a lot to work with for this week's fic. I apologize for its being so close to the wire, and I also apologize for its blandness. Let's hope for better fodder in the future!

“I’m happy for you, Alicia.” Owen tries to sound sincere as he sips his wine. It is late, far later than he had meant to stay, but guilt keeps him from leaving Alicia’s apartment. He knows that going to Lockhart Gardner to talk to Will had probably been a mistake, something done on a single, wild, romantic impulse and instantly regretted as soon as the elevator doors opened. What had he been thinking? He knows that Alicia will explode if she ever learns of his clandestine Cupiding, and he resolves that she never will.  Whatever they talk about tonight, he is not going to mention Will Gardner to her.

“You’re not happy for me,” Alicia says, smiling a little as she sips her own wine.  She’s more relaxed than she has been in weeks, but even so, it’s not the same as it used to be with Owen.  She wonders why she never even thought to call him when she left Lockhart Gardner two weeks before. 

“I am! Really, Sis—I am.  This could be exciting. New clients, new cases, new partners . . .”

Alicia snorts. “The number of those new partners is shrinking every day.” She tells Owen about Anthony.

“It’s a real spy-versus-spy world out there, isn’t?  Did lawyers always act like this?  What did they teach you in law school, anyway?”

“They taught us what to do when _other_ people acted like this.  I guess we figured it out from that.” Alicia takes another swig of her wine and closes her eyes for a minute. She’s been telling herself how much she’s enjoying this new adventure, how she relishes having struck out on her own. But that bravado fades a little when she’s lying awake at night, trying not to think about the people she left behind and hurt. She wills herself to focus on getting Florrick, Agos and Associates up and running and to banish every single other feeling to the tightly-closed box where such feelings belong.

Owen looks at her, concerned. He and Alicia talk less than they used to, but he knows that she hasn’t been happy, really happy, for years that long preceded Peter’s scandal. She needs more than a new job—she needs a new life, one entirely separate from Peter and the governorship and all that being the First Lady of Illinois entails.  He wonders if she ever wants to run away from it all.

_Don’t ask about Will, don’t ask about Will._ He tries a somewhat more general tactic. “You’ll miss them all, won’t you? I mean, that’s only natural.”

Alicia looks at Owen a little sadly. “Yes. I suppose that _is_ only natural.” She falls silent, and he knows she must be thinking about Will. He wishes that there were more that he could do for her.  _He’ll get over it_ , he thinks. _He won’t feel betrayed forever._ _Now that you’re not working with him, you can actually be a couple_. Owen wishes that he could tell her that. Alicia always thinks about everyone else in her life: her kids, her mother, Peter, even himself. He knows she never, ever lets herself imagine what just plain _being happy_ , apart from the perceptions of the world and needs of everyone else, might feel like.

All that Alicia knows right now is that sadness is washing over her, and she senses that Owen can see it. It’s the wine, she thinks—she needs to cut herself off right now, to end this evening and get some sleep before her apartment is once again invaded by the adolescent hordes.  She assumes that the sadness is because things between her and Will are far uglier than she had ever intended them to be.  She tries to picture the way Will’s face looked as the elevator doors closed around him, the coldness of his parting “I don’t give a damn.“

Alicia knows that she should be thinking about Will—it is he, after all, who is at the root of what she is feeling right now. But for some reason, she is picturing instead what Kalinda looked like during the endless glance that they shared in the doorway of the ladies room a few days before she left the firm.  Try as she might to block it out, Alicia can feel Kalinda’s deep hurt etched into her mind’s eye. It’s a look that she has seen on Kalinda’s face too many times in the past.  Although Alicia had been the one who received that first, blinding wound in their relationship, Kalinda had been on the receiving end of many more since that time—none as shocking, none as huge, but steady, numerous, and increasingly painful nonetheless. For the first time, Alicia thinks it might be a tossup as to which of them has inflicted greater hurt upon the other.

_Kalinda’s tentative “Are you sorry, too?” Her own anger, anger which now appeared completely unfair. And Kalinda again: “Alicia . . . don’t you miss what we had at all? Don’t you ever think about it?”_ I try not to, _she had thought at the time._   I try as hard as I can not to. _She said nothing instead._

_Kalinda had sighed, gotten up, and gone to bathroom to prepare for bed without a word. Alicia remained on the bed, hating herself even more than she had on that night Kalinda had offered her a beer. What was the matter with her? Why was she unable simply to accept what Kalinda offered and try to start over? What was she afraid of?_

Owen touches Alicia’s shoulder. “Alicia . . . do you really want to stay with Peter? Really?”

“I love him.” She answers Owen quickly and reflexively, without giving herself a chance to think about the truth of that response. She tries to picture Peter’s face, his pride in her new law firm. For no good reason at all, Kalinda’s image swims in front of her again.

“You love him?” Owen can’t help sounding skeptical, even with his resolutions not to talk about Will. _Talking about Peter isn’t exactly talking about Will_ , he rationalizes.

“I do. And it’s not like . . . “

“What?”

“It’s not like there’s any other reasonable choice, really.  My life is fine as it is.  It’s great, actually.” Alicia almost succeeds at sounding sincere.

“Alicia, sometimes you really just need to follow your heart.” Owen says this carefully.  It’s as close as he’s going to get tonight to the subject that he has declared off limits.

_But what if my heart is telling me something that’s clearly insane?_ Alicia quashes the thought immediately, wondering where it had come from. It was about Will, of course. She tries to picture Will’s intense gaze and lopsided smile; this time she succeeds. She begins to feel a little less panicky as she takes another sip of her wine and breathes deeply.

Owen puts down his own glass and sits up. He really needs to be on his way before he says something that he’ll regret. “I gotta jet, Sis. Are the kids still awake? I’d like to say goodbye before I leave.”

“Zach’s light is still on, but I think Grace went to bed an hour or so ago.”

“How is she doing?”

“Who knows? She’s actually seemed a lot happier for the last week or so—I have no idea why, but I’m trying not to ask too many questions.”

Owen smiles.  “Good policy. I’ll stop in and say hey to Zach.” He leaves the room, and Alicia wonders about her daughter for a moment—maybe she’s found a friend. Alicia hopes so.  She ignores the sudden rush of sadness that comes with the thought; this time it’s easier, because she’s getting used to these waves.  Tomorrow, she thinks, tomorrow will be a better day.

 


	8. Batman and Robyn Drink Beer ("The Next Month")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kalinda and Robyn meet at a bar and talk about work, Alicia, Grace, and life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was mostly bored by "The Next Month." The highlight of the episode by a lot was the scene between Kalinda and Robyn, and that's what this week's missing Kalicia scene is built around. You'll notice that I'm starting to build a bit of a plot here, and I'll continue to do that--there's only so many times I can go back and forth with different versions of Kalinda-is-sad and Alicia-is-a-big-fat-repressing-repressor-who-represses. For some reason, and much to my surprise, what's really floating my creative boat right now is the idea of Kalinda and Grace. (I mean, _Grace_! Where the hell did that one come from?) Since the holidays are fast approaching, I'm having a lovely time imagining Kalinda and Grace as a future couple, going to holiday dinners hosted by Peter and Alicia. Hah! Alicia deserves every ounce of all that (and so does Peter), but I digress.
> 
> For a pretty awesome Grace and Kalinda fic, I highly recommend [Chalk or Fire](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1037968) by string.

“Thanks for meeting me.” Robyn, a little embarrassed, is focusing on her beer. 

Kalinda looks at her and doesn’t say anything for a moment. Although it is late, the bar is less crowded and quieter than usual. 

“What happened?” Kalinda takes a sip of her own beer and braces herself for what she might be about to hear. Despite her better judgment, she can’t seem to help worrying about Robyn, can’t seem to refuse to meet her to talk, or to help her when asked. Kalinda does not allow herself to draw the obvious parallel to the only other person who had a similar effect on her from the very beginning.

Unexpectedly, Robyn smiles. “I think it’s going to be ok. I kind of kicked some serious ass today.” She tells Kalinda all about it, starting with pretending to be a skip tracer offering a percentage of a fake bond for information, continuing to the planting of false evidence to prove a nonexistent blood feud, and culminating in the creation of a fictitious air bag scam artist, thereby convincing the Mexican border officials to refuse entry to Florrick Agos’s client and thus saving his life.  Robyn is both abashed and very pleased with herself.  

Kalinda, for her part, is caught somewhere between amused and appalled. “Robyn . . . lying like that when you’re working for a law firm can be very dicey. You were lucky this time.”

Robyn looks at her, surprised. “It’s nothing that I haven’t seen you do.”

“You haven’t seen me lie to a government official.  You could have gotten into some real trouble here. You might have really wrecked things for Florrick Agos, not to mention for yourself.”

“But I didn’t.” Robyn sounds both patient and stubborn. “I didn’t, it worked, we won, and I get to keep my job.”

“They told you that?”

“Well, Cary never told me that I _wasn’t_ going to have a job—I just heard him talking with the other Carey. But he seemed to be pretty happy with how I did, and he told me to keep doing it. So I think I’m safe for awhile.”

“What about Alicia?” Kalinda tries to sound casual as she asks the question, willing her heart to stop racing at the name. “What did Alicia think about it all?”

Robyn snorts. “Alicia never really likes _anything_ that I do—I mostly deal with Cary. I know she was glad that it all worked out, but she seemed a little annoyed at me.”

“Annoyed?” Kalinda tries not to appear as interested as she actually is.  “Annoyed about what?”

“I don’t know,” Robyn fiddles with her napkin and takes a peanut out of the plate in front of her. “I didn’t tell either of them exactly what I did, and they didn’t ask. But I almost get the feeling . . .”

“Yes?”

“I think it bugged her a little that I pulled it off. I get the impression that she thinks that you’re the only one who can do these last-minute save-the-case miracles.”

Kalinda stares at her. “Robyn, that’s . . . that’s not true. She wouldn’t think that, because it doesn’t make sense.  She’s on the other side, and you helped her win.”

Robyn smiles a little at that. “I did, didn’t I? But whatever, Alicia wasn’t crazy about it—I can tell you that, even if I’m not totally sure why. What is it with the two of you, anyway?”

Kalinda doesn’t answer that, both because there’s really nothing to say that Robyn would understand and because she herself no longer knows the answer to that question.  Robyn, who had not really expected Kalinda to respond, is unsurprised. The two sit in relatively companionable silence for a moment, each with her own thoughts.

“I’ve been meeting her daughter for firearms lessons.” Kalinda can’t believe that she has said this, to Robyn of all people. What’s the matter with her, lately? But she is lonely, she knows this, even though she rarely allows herself to verbalize the thought. Will is too focused on turning LG into one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in the country to give Kalinda more than a passing thought.  She hasn’t spoken to Cary in weeks, and it’s been far longer than that since she and Alicia have had any sort of real conversation. All she has, really, is a drink or two with Robyn every once in awhile, and meeting Grace Florrick once a week to teach her about guns.  Kalinda tries unsuccessfully to suppress a sigh—she knows how pathetic all of this would seem to anyone who knows her.  (Not, of course, that anyone really _does_ know her.)

Robyn stares at Kalinda. “What did you say?”

Kalinda hates to repeat it.  “I’ve been meeting her daughter Grace for firearms lessons for the last month or so—it was her idea. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention it to Alicia.”

Robyn nods. “Of course I won’t. I try not to talk to Alicia too much, anyway. But don’t you think that’s a little . . . weird? Why would Alicia’s daughter want firearms lessons?”

Kalinda shrugs, feeling as though she is simultaneously betraying two Florricks by having this conversation at all. “She’s curious.”

Robyn has a far-away look in her eyes for a moment. “I remember feeling that. I have a lot of really liberal friends who thought the whole idea was horrifying. But . . .”

“Yeah.” Kalinda knows exactly what she means. She and Robyn sit quietly again in a moment of shared understanding. This time Robyn is the one who breaks the silence with a question.

“Kalinda—what happened when they wanted to lay you off at the State’s Attorney five years ago?  I mean, how did you keep them from doing that?”

Kalinda doesn’t answer, because suddenly she is reliving it all, in a crazy quilt of images.  She is setting her house in Toronto on fire and leaving Nick forever. She is choosing the name “Kalinda Sharma” because she loves the sound of it, loves how very different it will make her from the Leela Tahiri she had been before. She is sleeping with Peter Florrick, who promises to fix the paperwork behind her new identity and who gives her a job at the State’s Attorney. She is betraying Peter by helping Glen Childs, because she believes that Childs is the one who will be the next SA of Chicago.  Peter is firing her when he finds out what she has done.  What she had told Robyn is right—losing a job changes you. But Kalinda had already gone through so many changes that, actually, one more had barely registered at the time. 

Robyn is looking at her; this time, she seems to expect an answer.  Kalinda tries to give her one. “I didn’t . . . it didn’t entirely keep them from doing that. I kept the job a little longer than I might have, but in the end they fired me anyway.”

Robyn grimaces. “You could have chosen a better anecdote for your pep talk, couldn’t you?”

Kalinda can’t help but smile at that. “The pep talk is over.” She takes a swig of her beer and signals the bartender for another one. 

Robyn laughs at that. “Maybe I’ll give _you_ a pep talk next time. You look as though you could use one.”

“I’m fine, Robyn.”  Kalinda really wishes she’d said about half of what had passed from her lips this evening.  “You don’t need to worry about me.”

Robyn gives her a sideways look. “Kalinda . . . was it worth it?”

“Was what worth it?”

“Whatever you had to do at the SA’s office to keep your job—making yourself hard and indispensable. After all, it didn’t really work out. You still had to leave.”

Kalinda thinks about this. Was it worth it?  Sleeping with Peter might well have been the very single thing that had ruined her life. Then again, if she hadn’t slept with Peter, she might never have decided to work for Childs, which might have meant that Peter never would have fired her. Then she’d never have been hired at Lockhart Gardner, and she’d never have met Alicia. But then again, if she’d never met Alicia, sleeping with Peter would _not_ have been the very single thing that had ruined her life in the first place.

Kalinda’s left eye begins to throb. She tries to give Robyn a condensed, clichéd version of the truth. “You can’t ever ask that. Life is what it is—you just have to try to keep up.”

Robyn nods.  She gets this.  “I hope I can keep up. I’m glad I still have you to talk to.”

Kalinda looks over at her, feeling a sudden rush of fondness. It’s nice to sit and have a drink without all of the complications, guilt, and regret.  She longs for Alicia—she has never stopped longing for her—but she realizes that she doesn’t really miss her.  It’s a small difference, but it’s real, and it’s something that she can cling to. 

“I’m glad, too.” And she really is.


	9. Becoming Your Mother-in-Law ("Whack-A-Mole")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alicia and Eli talk about judgeships and betrayals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Whack-A-Mole" was a mostly filler episode for me. I enjoyed the CoTW because I'm a sucker for anything to do with Internet culture. (For a good article on the Reddit case on which the episode was based and the show's consideration of technology in general, check out [this](http://www.buzzfeed.com/jwherrman/why-everyone-in-tech-needs-to-be-watching-the-good-wife) from Buzzfeed.) But I'm not too thrilled with Damian as a foil for Kalinda--too been-there-done-that--although I like him fine as a character apart from K. The spy-versus-spy stuff between the two law firms is getting a little old. I'm assuming it'll really climax tonight, and then we'll have a hiatus of about a month, so when we come back it'll all probably seem less tedious. Anyway, here you go. I apologize for the tardiness--I plead an unusually persistent Tryptophan coma!

About to enter the governor’s office, Alicia almost crashes directly into an exiting Eli, who is scowling at his Blackberry and paying no attention to anyone and anything else.

“Eli?” 

He glances up, sees who it is, and tries to rearrange his face into something a little softer than the furious dark cloud it obviously wishes to be. 

“Sorry. Peter’s not here, if you’re coming to see him.”

“I was, but I can catch him later. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

Alicia’s heart thuds just a little harder, more at his stern expression than at his words. She wonders if she’s ever going to stop being afraid of some new scandal on the horizon, about to drop on her and change the predictable course of her life once again. 

“Eli . . . please. I can see that it’s not nothing. What is it? Is it anything that I need to be . . .”

He realizes what she’s getting at and then hastens to answer. “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s just . . . well, Rachel Kaiser turned down the supreme court judgeship.”

Alicia winces inwardly. She doesn’t like talking about, or even thinking about, that judgeship appointment. She doesn’t want to be forced to consider that what Peter did to Diane might not be exactly fair or right, and she certainly doesn’t want to decide how she feels about it. It was much better—much safer—to tuck that whole episode somewhere into the back of her mind, never allowing it to see the light of day and hoping that, like so many other thoughts she keeps in that crowded little mental chamber, it might eventually wither and die from lack of exposure to sunlight.

But Rachel’s appointment didn’t have anything directly to do with Diane, so Alicia decides that it is safe to address it. “But . . . why? Rachel is perfect for the job, and I’m sure she really wanted it. Peter told me that it was a done deal.”

Eli sighs. “He thought it was. Jackie had other ideas.”

“Jackie?” Now Alicia is staring at him. “She . . . what? I don’t understand. What does Jackie have to do with Rachel?”

Eli hesitates, then seems to make up his mind.  He points toward his office down the hall, and Alicia follows him there. He shuts the door, motions Alicia to the couch, and sits in a chair beside her.

“Eli, what is it?”

“This is a conversation between the two of us—I don’t want you to mention it to Peter. If you feel that you can’t agree to that, I’ll understand, but then I won’t be able to talk about it with you.”

Alicia doesn’t hesitate. “I won’t say anything to Peter, Eli.”

Eli wonders a little at her quick willingness, but shakes off that bit of unease to concentrate on the moment at hand. “According to Jackie, Rachel and Peter’s father had an ongoing affair about twenty years ago.”

Alicia stares at him. “Does Peter know about this?”

Eli shakes his head. “No, and I don’t want him to find out. Nothing good can come of it.”

“But she dropped out herself . . . you didn’t withdraw her name. Did Jackie . . .”

Eli rolls his eyes. “She says not, of course, but I know Jackie, and I know what she’s likely to do in a situation like this. She came to me first and asked me to take Rachel’s name off the table.”

“And what did you do?”

“I told her to concentrate on decorating the mansion and let me do my job.”

Alicia smiles at that. “I’m sure that went over well.”

“Yeah,” Eli gives Alicia one of the rueful grins he reserves just for her. “I probably could have handled it better. I’m always underestimating Jackie.  And she probably has a point this time.”

Alicia raises her eyebrow at him. “She had a point in forcing a qualified candidate to withdraw?”

Eli shakes his head. “No, of course not. But it _is_ true that it’s probably better if Rachel stays out of the path of all the Florricks.  Once you’ve had an affair with someone’s spouse, you’ve pretty much burned that bridge forever. Rachel should have disclosed the affair to me when I vetted her.”

Alicia suddenly feels heat on her cheeks at Eli’s pronouncement: _once you’ve had an affair with someone’s spouse, you’ve pretty much burned that bridge forever_. For some reason, those words cause a wave of sadness so intense that it’s almost a physical pain.

“Alicia?  Are you all right?”

Alicia shakes herself.   “Of course. Eli, I’m sorry about this—I know you need to find a qualified female candidate. And after Diane, well . . .”

“Yeah.” They share a look of understanding, each knowing that the other is uncomfortable with what Peter did and that neither wants to discuss it any further.

Eli stands up. “Alicia, I’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes across town that I need to go to—I was on my way out before we bumped into each other. Are you sure you’re ok?” He looks at her closely, thinking that her face is even more opaque and inscrutable than it usually is.

“I’m fine, Eli.  Go to your meeting. I’ll leave a note for Peter and get back to work myself.” He smiles at her again, touches her shoulder, and leaves.

Alicia sits on Eli’s couch for a moment, struck by the uncomfortable thought that, after all these years and all of their disagreements, she and Jackie actually appear to have something in common. She assumes that the only reason that she’s not feeling much sympathy toward Jackie right now is because she resents how brazenly Peter’s mother is always—ALWAYS!—able to interfere in her son’s business. Because this time, Alicia knows, Jackie does indeed have a point. No woman should be forced to have anything to do with someone who slept with her husband. No woman in the world could ever _really_ forgive anything like that.  As Kalinda’s face—Kalinda’s liquid, expressive eyes—floats in front of her mind’s eye, Alicia braces herself for (and anticipates the comforting familiarity of) the usual spark of righteous anger. But this time, there is no anger at all, only the sudden realization that she is not Jackie, and Kalinda—whatever, whoever she might be—is not Rachel.  This is—this was—different, somehow. She and Jackie actually have nothing much in common at all.

_I miss her_.  Alicia starts as the thought rises defiantly to the surface of her mind, unwilling to be stuffed down any longer.  _Maybe we can talk sometime_. She had thought that leaving LG behind would mean that she would have great difficulty seeing anyone connected to her old law firm.  But that didn’t seem to be happening—she is seeing Will, Diane (even David Lee!) on a regular basis.  But never Kalinda. By now, with the two law firms having so many intertwined cases and interests, it actually was starting to seem impossible that she hasn’t run into Kalinda at all. It is almost as though there were some force external to the two of them, determined to keep their paths from crossing. _But that’s silly; there’s nothing out there keeping us from talking, if that’s what we both want to do.  If I feel like calling Kalinda, I can do that. And maybe I should._

Irritated with herself at this entire line of reasoning, Alicia succeeds at pushing these thoughts back where they belong.  Yes, she might miss Kalinda a bit, that was only natural.  They had always worked well together. But Eli was right—after a complicated betrayal, it’s far better for everyone to remain in separate spheres.  She nods decisively to solidify that very practical thought, then rises from Eli’s couch to leave a note for Peter.

 


	10. We Used to be Friends ("The Decision Tree")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace asks Kalinda something ridiculous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naturally, I admire "The Decision Tree" for being a really fine piece of dramatic television. Josh Charles was on fire throughout the episode, and the juxtaposition of the Alicia he interrogated in his imagination and the real one whom he encountered on the stand was just brilliant. But the fact that the show can explore the nuances of Willicia while completely ignoring Kalicia just makes me sad, especially since I think the whole dynamic between Alicia and Kalinda is so fundamentally more interesting than the one between Alicia and Will. (And, of course, the so-called storyline for Kalinda in this episode was ridiculous--high speed car chases of a new character we don't care about, ending in sex with another new character we don't care about? Please. *This* is what you give us after developing Kalinda's character for four and a half years?)
> 
> Anyway, this week's installment advances the Grace/Kalinda plot which is slowly taking over this fic. Enjoy!

Kalinda’s hand jerks automatically toward her buzzing cell phone, startling Jenna, who is drowsing beside her. Seeing the name that flashes across her screen, Kalinda immediately sits up, pulls the sheet up closer to her chin, and taps “answer.”

“Hello?”

“Kalinda? It’s Grace.”

Kalinda wonders if anything is wrong—she and Grace tend to communicate in text messages rather than phone calls, and even those are usually strictly about the details of their firearm sessions. 

“We’re not supposed to meet today, are we?” Kalinda wonders if she somehow mixed up a date.  That seems unlikely, because she always looks forward to seeing Grace for reasons that remain somewhat mysterious to her.

“No, we said next Wednesday at the shooting range.  But I was wondering . . . do you have time to have a cup of coffee tomorrow around 4:00?  There’s something I want to ask you.”

Kalinda is a little apprehensive about the sound of this.  She’s vaguely aware that Grace might be developing something of a crush on her.  She doesn’t want to encourage that, even though she isn’t quite ready to discourage it entirely. The firearms lessons are about as intimate as she wants to get with Grace: some conversation is possible, but they don’t have to look at each other, and when they don’t want to talk at all they can just fire away in silence.  Coffee would mean eye contact, conversation unbroken by gunshots, and possibly questions that Kalinda wouldn’t want to answer.

“I don’t know . . .”

“Please, Kalinda? It won’t take long.”

Kalinda sighs again; she realizes that she is having almost as hard a time saying no to Grace as she always had saying no to her mother.  They arrange to meet at 4:00 the following afternoon at the Starbucks a block away from Lockhart Gardner.

Jenna arches an eyebrow as Kalinda clicks off her cell phone.  “Former girlfriend or current one?”

“Neither one.  Just a . . . friend.”

Jenna snorts at that in disbelief as she leans in for another kiss.  Kalinda kisses back absently, her mind still on Grace Florrick.  What could she want to talk about with her?

 

****

 

The next day, Kalinda arrives at Starbucks a few minutes before 4:00, but Grace is already seated with her Peppermint Mocha. Kalinda buys herself a Chai Latte and slides into the seat across from her. She stirs the drink, waiting for Grace to start the conversation that they are apparently about to have.

“So, I wanted to ask you .. . . well, my mother is giving a holiday party at her office on Friday.”

Kalinda starts a little—try as she might, that remains her typical reaction every time Grace mentions her mother. Whatever she thought Grace had to say to her, it wasn’t this. She decides to take a sip of her drink and wait for a little more before responding.

“She told us—Zach and me—that we could invite friends to it if we wanted.  It’s going to be really big, I think Mom said that something like 800 people were invited. I thought maybe you’d like to come.” Grace says this all in a rush, as if it’s not the most preposterous suggestion that Kalinda has ever heard.

“Grace. I can’t do that.” Kalinda sometimes wonders about Grace, who seems to be a peculiar combination of bright and extraordinarily naive. The two of them have never talked about Alicia directly, but Kalinda can’t imagine that the tension between her mother and her . . . firearms tutor . . . hasn’t been clear to Grace from the beginning.  Kalinda, in fact, had always assumed that part of the charm of their odd friendship for Grace lay precisely in the fact that Alicia would be profoundly uncomfortable at its very idea. If Kalinda is being honest with herself—and she often _is_ honest with herself—she would admit that this thought holds some attraction for her as well.  She’s not befriending Grace solely either to punish Alicia or to attempt to to get closer to her—she’s sure about that, because toying with the feelings of a teenager in such a manner was a loathsome idea. But something of that certainly _was_ an element nonetheless, however big or small an element it might be.

“Why not?” Grace asks the question a little aggressively, and Kalinda suddenly realizes that Grace isn’t naïve at all, at least about this.  She understands something of the troubles between her mother and Kalinda, and this invitation is her attempt to do something about it.  Kalinda is touched by that, so much so that she feels her eyes sting a bit as she takes another sip of her Chai to give her a second to plan a response. 

Grace looks at her sharply. “I know something happened between the two of you, but neither of you ever talk about it. This will just be a party, with lots of people. You probably won’t even have to see Mom, if you don’t want to.”

Kalinda finds herself considering Grace’s words, ridiculous as she knows them to be. “The party is probably primarily for the Florrick Agos clients. Having someone from Lockhart Gardner there wouldn’t be right, especially given the . . . professional circumstances right now.”

Grace looks stubborn. “But you’re not a lawyer—you’re an investigator. And my father is going to be there, too.  It’s not _just_ clients.”

Kalinda sighs inwardly at the absurd idea of attending a party with Peter and Alicia Florrick in the same room. _Ask your mother about this_ , she thinks. But for some reason, she does not want to instruct Grace to ask Alicia, because if she did that, their whole whatever-it-was would be definitively and forever over.  Alicia would certainly not want Kalinda coming to her party, and she would also not want Grace to continue her clandestine shooting lessons and occasional conversations. Kalinda realizes that she does not want these encounters to end any earlier than she can help it.

“Grace,” Kalinda tries again.  “This just isn’t . . . it’s not something that your mother would want.”

“What happened with you two?” Grace asks the question determinedly, with the air of someone who had been holding it back for some time. “You used to be friends, didn’t you? I mean, she used to talk about you all the time.”

 _A long time ago_ . . . Kalinda almost smiles to herself as the [silly song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm1g5Yg0hUw) pops into her mind. But nothing about any of it has ever been funny.  “We were. But it isn’t something that’s really my place to discuss with you. You would need to ask your mother about it.” Kalinda feels another of those familiar pangs at the finality of the simple “We were.”

Grace ignores that. “Do you _want_ to come?”

Kalinda actually does. She is curious about what Florrick Agos looks like from the inside, and the idea of seeing Alicia dressed up and lovely for her party fills her with longing. The whole scene is so clear in her mind that she feels as though she’s watching a movie of it. But she shakes that all off as she answers Grace’s question.

“It doesn’t matter what I want. This just isn’t something that I can do. I’m sorry.” And Kalinda _is_ sorry, both for herself and for Grace.

Grace, who has finished her drink, stands up to leave. “If you change your mind, the party starts at 8:00 on Friday. And I’ll see you next Wednesday for our lesson, right?” Grace has the worried look of someone fearing that she has just tipped the equilibrium of something very shaky and very precious.

Kalinda nods. “You will.” Grace smiles in relief and exits, leaving Kalinda to her own drink and thoughts.

 

***

 

Despite Jackie, despite Veronica, despite Eli and Marilyn’s constant worries about Peter and some of the more unsavory guests, Alicia knows that the party is a success: the guests are happy, the food and alcohol are plentiful, and the atmosphere is cheerful.  But as she scans the room she sees Grace, who had been attentively watching guests arrive and who is now slumped unhappily in a corner chair. Alicia makes her way over to her daughter.

“Grace? Are you having a good time?”

Grace makes a visible effort to force herself to look like someone who _was_ having a good time. “It’s a great party, Mom.”

Alicia looks at her worriedly.  “Did you invite any friends? I see that Zach has a girl from his class here somewhere.”

Grace glances at her brother, who is chatting with someone she recognizes from school but doesn’t know. “I did ask someone, but she couldn’t come.”

“I’m sorry. But I hope you’re enjoying yourself anyway.”

Grace nodded, not terribly convincingly. “I am.  Mom . . .” Grace hesitates. “Did you invite any friends here yourself?”

Alicia stares at her daughter. “Friends? Grace, there are more than 800 people somehow crammed into these offices. I don’t think there would be room for too many other people.” Alicia tries to laugh, and realizes uncomfortably that her laughter sounds forced.

Grace doesn’t laugh back. “But . . . you do have friends, don’t you?”

Alicia is startled at the question. “Of course I have friends,” she answers reflexively, wondering a split second after she does whether she is telling the truth. She pushes away Kalinda’s face as soon as she feels it unhelpfully bobbing into her line of mental vision.

Grace looks at her mother, almost as if she can read her thoughts. “Good. Friends are good to have.” Grace looks as though she wants to say more but then stops herself.

Alicia sighs.


	11. It's A Brand-New Year ("Goliath and David")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kalinda fails at her New Year's resolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back from the holidays! "Goliath and David" was the first hint of a potential Kalicia scene that we've had in an entire year, and of course it might well just be a fantasy that all of the Kalinda-has-no-friends anvils from the episode are pointing toward her going to Alicia and trying again. But a shipper's hope springs eternal, and I genuinely *do* think that we might see something like that in 5:12. Because of this (probably slim) possibility, I was forced to tread water with this chapter and not let anything much happen, just in case something significant DOES happen in the next episode. If not, it'll be full steam ahead for my next chapter--at least we'll always have fic! And speaking of fic, I wrote [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1088998/chapters/2191471) for Yuletide as an apology for all of the angsty chapters in these Missing Kalicia scenes, and my good pal schwarmerei wrote [this very imaginative Star Trek crossover](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1091363) that also has a very happy Kalicia ending. So if you're tired of darkness and ambivalence, head on over there!

For the first time in many, many years, Kalinda makes a New Year’s resolution, a simple one: she is not going to think about Alicia Florrick at all. She is tired of pining, tired of the emotional work of loving someone who does not spare her a thought in return. She decided some time ago that she no longer misses Alicia, not really. And if she doesn’t miss her, she doesn’t need to think about her; it can be as simple as that. Spending time with Grace in light of her new resolve is going to be tricky--she certainly wasn’t about to drop Grace as she herself had been dropped, and more and more she has found herself enjoying their odd sort of friendship. But tricky is not the same thing as impossible, and Kalinda is certain that she will be able to do this. She wants 2014 to be as much of an Alicia-free year as it possibly can be.

The resolution is hardly formulated, however, before she is forced to think about Alicia no fewer than three times over the course of one week. (And it _would_ have to be three times, wouldn’t it? Of course it would—it’s always three. No wonder Peter denied Jesus three times.  _Peter_.  Dammit.  And damn that all-too-persistent St. Mary’s High education for sticking with her and revealing itself at the most inconvenient moments!) 

 

_one_

Staring at the obscenely large portrait of Peter in the governor’s office, Kalinda has every intention of refusing any request that Eli might have of her—even a frozen Peter leering at her in a picture, once or twice removed from real life, makes her feel faintly nauseous. But as usual, Eli appears to know exactly what buttons to push to get what he wants.

As soon as she hears Eli asking her to uncover the father of the governor’s ethics advisor’s baby—a mystery baby daddy whose first name is actually _Peter_ —Kalinda is even more certain that nothing can convince her to touch this one. She rolls her eyes to herself as she hears Eli tell her that “technically” she would not be helping Peter Florrick if she were to take the case.

“Well who is it for then, _technically_?”

“Alicia Florrick. I need an investigator who won’t leak, who won’t hurt Alicia.” Eli pulls out this trump card lovingly, confidently, with the air of a man who knows that he will prevail in the end.

“With?” Kalinda curses silently as she asks the question, knowing that she is simply stalling for time. She badly wants to get out of the Alicia-saving business—Alicia left her behind without a second thought and has shown no indication of remembering that Kalinda is even alive. She does not want to become angry and vengeful like Will has become—she’s very comfortable with a stance of Alicia-neutrality.  But choosing not to attack Alicia and silently, stalwartly helping her are two entirely different things. By this point, really, only a complete idiot-chump would  . . .

“The possibility that Peter is the father. It’s a slim possibility, but even the question could cause problems. I need an outsider who won’t leak.”

Kalinda sighs, giving in. “$500 an hour.”

If she is going to be a complete idiot-chump, she wants at least to be a well paid one.

 

_two_

“Jenna and you, you tell each other everything?” Any interest that Kalinda might have had in Jenna has vanished as soon as it became clear just how loyal she is to Damian. Kalinda has disliked and mistrusted him from the beginning; she would have checked out his background even if Diane had not asked her to do so. He is smug, and entitled, and certain that he will always have the upper hand in every possible situation. When Kalinda looks at him she sees Nick, and Blake, and a myriad of other men who have taken her emotional energy and offered her little in return.

“Well, we’re friends you know? Don’t you have _friends_?” Damian says the last word like a taunt, as if he knows that it’s one of the few words he can say that will cause Kalinda a little internal waver.

“Um . . . “ Kalinda feels the waver and curses to herself once again—the very word “friends” means Alicia to her, brings back unwelcome memories of tequila shots and laughter and pain and betrayal. Only the thought of Alicia can make render her mute, and she hates herself for it. Kalinda doesn’t even try to answer. She walks away from a smirking Damian, knowing that he has managed to win this round because of it.

 

_three_

Kalinda pulls over into the parking lot of the convenience store as the cop car behind her flashes its lights. She is not at all surprised to see Jenna walking toward her, asking for her license and registration.

“I think it’s best if we just cool it.” Kalinda enjoys the coldness of her own words, imagining for a split second that she is saying them to Alicia.

“Why?”

“I don’t know if I like you.” 

Hurt flashes quickly across Jenna’s face. It is gone in an instant, but Kalinda notices it nonetheless. “You like me.”

“I don’t like how much you talk.”

“So this is about Damian. This is about him or me or . . .?”

Kalinda looks at her. “Can I go now?” The coldness in her voice. is even more pronounced.

“Yeah, you can go.” Jenna hesitates.  “Look, I just don’t like losing friends, ok I mean, lovers I don’t mind, but friends?  They come through. So don’t make this about him or me.”

 _Friends. They come through_. The words echo in Kalinda’s head as she drives into the darkness.Kalinda snorts a bit to herself at the thought of Jenna, whom she met a week or two ago, considering herself a _friend_ rather than a quick and relatively satisfying lay. Even when she lies awake in her bed at night, willing herself not to think about everything that has gone wrong in the past and will likely go wrong in the future, she does not doubt that she has always come through for Alicia.  Has Alicia ever come through for her?  _Would_ she come through, if Kalinda were to make another attempt to rekindle their friendship?  Or would Alicia, as she had after the beer offer, after “I miss this” in Minnesota, just freeze, shut down, and back away?

Kalinda is suddenly very tired. Her first week of not thinking about Alicia is not going well at all.  

 

 

 

 

 


	12. It's Hard To Be Cary ("We, The Juries")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cary wonders why he puts himself through this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe that I used up just about the entire seven-week hiatus procrastinating the writing of this new chapter! Part of that, of course, is because I'm sulking just as hard as Cary does here over the fact that a whole half season has gone by (and just about a whole season in terms of number of episodes overall), and Alicia and Kalinda still have yet to share a scene. Since we're clearly gearing up for another Cary/Kalinda arc, it seemed only natural to tell this one from Cary's point of view. I hope you enjoy it, and I'll try to get in the right head space to finish off this project when the back half of the season commences on Sunday.

Cary looks at Kalinda, who is sitting in the bar stool next to him. _This is a bad idea,_ he thinks once again to himself. He knows it won’t stop at hanging out and drinks—there is too much history between the two of them for anything as casual as that. He knows that if they have drinks, they will sleep together again, possibly tonight, possibly not, but certainly in the very near future. After years of wanting nothing more than that, Cary isn’t even sure how he feels about it anymore.

Kalinda catches his eye and cocks on eyebrow at him. “Yeah?”

Cary shrugs. “Nothing.  But . . . what are we doing?”

“We’re having a drink.” He knows that Kalinda understands what he’s getting at, but he knows too that she has no interest at all in pursuing it.  For some reason, right now, he’s finding that irritating.

His martini is making him just fuzzy enough to want to try again. “I mean . . . why do you care about this? Why did you come to see me?”

Kalinda sighs. “I told you.  I missed you.” She is quiet, looking down at her own drink and tilting it a little. She starts to say something else but stops before she can get it out.

Cary glances at her sharply.  “What?”

Kalinda looks back at him.  “Nothing. I just . . . it’s hard not seeing you every day, not working with you.  I’ve just been wondering how you’re doing, that’s all.  It can’t be easy for you and . . . Alicia . . . to . . .”

Cary hears Kalinda’s voice stumble a little over the name “Alicia,” and he suddenly gets it.  His irritation increases. It’s always been the two of them, and he’s always been the one on the outside. No matter how many times he sleeps with Kalinda, no matter how few times Alicia and Kalinda exchange a civil word with one another, that’s the way it’s always going to be.  There’s Alicia and Kalinda, and then there’s Cary. For no reason at all, he suddenly thinks about his first year at the firm. He had been so confident then, so sure that he would easily be able to win the competition against Alicia.  The fact that it hadn’t worked out that way was largely due to the fact that Alicia had been Kalinda’s favorite from day one. Even though it was long ago, even though he is a different person now, even though Alicia is his partner and more or less his friend, Cary feels a flash of the bitterness that he had lived with during his entire first year at the SA’s office, after he had been fired from Lockhart Gardner. Sometimes he wonders if anyone’s life ever really moves emotionally beyond high school.  He and Kalinda might have slept together in the past, and they will probably sleep together in the future. But as long as Alicia exists, their essential dynamic will never be able to change. He suddenly, and ferociously, hates both of them equally.

Cary doesn’t say any of that, though, both because he’s aware of how absurdly self-pitying it sounds, and because he knows that Kalinda never wants to hear anything resembling the truth in conversations that involve Alicia. He takes another sip of his drink and goes for the bland shrug. 

“We’re getting by.”

Kalinda smiles a little at that. “You and Alicia have really been working well together over the past year.”

Cary grimaces, noting that Alicia is about to enter the conversation no matter how he feels about it. “Yeah.  We’re the red team, remember?  Team shirts and all that.”

Kalinda doesn’t say anything in response, and Cary is aware of the sudden wave of sadness radiating off of her.  He’s half sympathetic, because Kalinda has always been his weak spot, and half angry, because he’s tired of being Kalinda’s consolation prize.

Sympathy finally wins, and for some reason it makes him speak nostalgically about that year that ended up causing him so much pain in the end. “We worked best when it was all three of us, back when Alicia and I first started. Remember that? Robyn’s good, but it’s never going to be the same as it was that year. Remember?”

Cary doesn’t have to wait for Kalinda’s nod to know that she remembers.  He has almost never seen Kalinda happy, and he certainly has not seen anything resembling happiness from her in the past two and a half years. But that year that Cary and Alicia started as junior associates . . . Kalinda had been happy that year.  However it had ended up for him, he likes to think of her being happy.

Cary studies his drink, but he slowly becomes aware that Kalinda is really looking at him.  He turns and catches her eye.

“Cary . . . I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that already.” Cary knows that he sounds as though he’s sulking, that he’s acting like little more than a fifteen-year-old out who isn’t getting as much attention from his date as he had imagined that he would. He turns away and takes another sip of his drink.

“Cary . . .” Cary hears Kalinda’s voice catch a little, and it startles him enough out of his brooding that he jerks around and looks directly at her.  She isn’t looking at him.

“What?” He says it in a softer voice, because Kalinda looks sad and vulnerable, and that tugs at him in spite of everything else.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” 

“You’ve been a better friend than she has.” Kalinda doesn’t explain the “she,” because she clearly knows that they’ve been having a subtext conversation ever since they sat down in this bar. And Cary doesn’t even pretend that he doesn’t understand exactly what she’s talking about.

Cary just nods, not saying anything. He knows that it’s true--he _has_ been a better friend to Kalinda than Alicia ever was. But he also knows that it really doesn’t matter. Kalinda’s heart will always be with Alicia, no matter how little reinforcement it gets. 

“I won’t ask you about her again.” It’s all Kalinda can offer him, but it’s big and it’s hard.

Cary shrugs. “That’s ok.  It’s fine.” He hesitates and then decides to add something else that he also knows is true. “She misses you. I can tell.”

Kalinda manages to brighten and to stiffen simultaneously; the expression that results ends up looking frozen. “She . . . hasn’t called me or texted me since you left. I don’t think she can be missing me all that much.”

Cary shakes his head, wondering why these two have always made everything so complicated. Yes, Kalinda had slept with Peter, but she didn’t even know Alicia then. Cary wonders why Alicia, who seems to be getting more and more comfortable with morally gray areas everywhere, can’t see why that fact makes all the difference in the world. “We don’t talk about our personal lives.  But she always seems awfully interested anytime anyone brings up your name.”

Kalinda shrugs a little, then sighs. “I hope your firm does well.”

“Me, too.” Cary smiles a little.

Kalinda shakes herself, then looks at Cary and really smiles. “Thanks.”

“Anytime.” And Cary means it.

 

 

 

 


	13. Another Day at the NSA ("Parallel Construction, Bitches")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The NSA geeks serve as foot soldiers in the shipper wars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we are again, with four hours to go before the next Good Wife episode. I have to confess that I miss the luxury of the seven-week hiatus! As far as the episode itself goes, I can't help enjoying anything to do with the geeks. So even though this was a place-setting episode for the Big Enormous Twist that we've been assured is coming in 3.15, I thought this one was fun. I've long since given up hope of any substantive Kalicia scene, so I won't bother to comment on its absence. Enjoy!

“Cary and Kalinda are back together.”

Tyler glances at Dev, who is peering over the wall adjoining their two cubicles. “What are you talking about?”

“Have you heard some of their conversations lately?”

“Of course I have.  That’s sort of my _job_ , you know.”  Tyler can’t help smiling to himself. When he had worked with Jeff on the Alicia Florrick warrant, Tyler was always the one who found himself fascinated with the personal lives of everyone connected to Lockhart Gardner. But Dev, who had taken over after Jeff left the NSA when his AppaPoko Iphone app had taken off, occasionally indulges his inner shipper as well. It’s a refreshing change for Tyler, even though he tries to play it cool.

Dev sees right through it, of course. He knows how interested Tyler actually is. “They’re talking a lot more lately. They’ve obviously slept together.”

Tyler shakes his head. “Kalinda doesn’t seem like the phone sex type. She’s . . . private. And besides . . .”

“Besides what?”

“I just don’t think Kalinda is ever going to be serious about Cary, whatever might be going on with the two of them right now.”

“Is this still because of your Alicia/Kalinda theory?” Jeff had briefed Dev thoroughly on Tyler’s certainty that Kalinda and Alicia had had an affair in the past, or were about to have one in the very near future.  Since Dev had yet to listen in on a conversation between the two of them, he thinks that Tyler couldn’t be farther off base.

Dev suddenly breaks off the conversation as his monitor spikes. “Incoming.”

“Who is it?”

“Diane and Will.” The two of them fall silent, both listening to the familiar sounds of the two voices.

_“Yes?”_

_“Will? It’s Diane.”_

_“What do you need?”_

_“I just want to know . . . how certain are you that Kalinda is right about Cary?”_

_“It’s Kalinda we’re talking about.  How often have you known her to be wrong about anything?”_

_“I know, but a lot is riding on this one. And Kalinda just seems . . . different lately.”_

_“She hasn’t been taken over by pod people. She’s still Kalinda.”_

_“Maybe. But some of the time  I think she’s just not quite the same person we’ve known for the last five years.”_

_“Diane, that’s ridiculous. I’d trust Kalinda’s instincts over anyone else’s, and she has no reason to lie to us. If she says Cary is lying, I believe her.”_

_“All right. I’m glad to hear that you’re so sure about this. I’m due in court in half an hour, and we can talk more after that if we need to do that.”_

_“Good luck!”_

Tyler shakes his head. “So near, and yet so far!”

Dev looks over at him. “Why do you think she told Diane that Cary was lying?”

“Well, she either read him wrong, or she’s lying to Lockhart Gardner.”

“I can’t see what she’d gain by lying to them.”

Tyler frowns. “But she’s . . . Kalinda. She’s never wrong, especially about people. Ergo, she has to be lying unless she’s become a totally different person.”

“Well, maybe Diane’s right. Maybe something’s off with her.”

“Maybe she’s off because she hasn’t been talking to Alicia.” Tyler isn’t sure what made him say this out loud, and he isn’t surprised when Dev scoffs. Dev is far too interested in Cary and Kalinda to give Kalicia theories more than a second of thought.

“Dude, you have to give that up. They’re not even friends, and Alicia Florrick is as straight as they come.”

Tyler glares at him. He’s gotten strangely sensitive about Alicia and Kalinda, a sensitivity that perversely has grown stronger as empirical evidence for any sort of Kalicia relationship has waned. “You don’t know what they were like two years ago.  Go back and listen to some of those conversations and _then_ tell me there isn’t anything between them.”

“I’ve got more to do than listen to old telephone conversations. Stop living in the past, man!” Dev turns suddenly as his computer blinks rapidly. “Hey, speak of the devil!”

“Which devil is that?”

“Kalinda just called Cary.” Dev sounds really cheerful about it.

“I thought the devils we were talking about were Alicia and Kalinda.”

Dev looks at Tyler sympathetically. “You were, Ty, but I’m tactfully helping you move on to an actual, non-fictional couple. Come here.”

Tyler leaves his own cube and comes over to listen to the voices on Dev’s computer.

_“Hey.”_

_“Kalinda? What’s up.”_

_“Are you all still using your burner phones?”_

_“Yes, until further notice. It feels very Spy-versus-Spy.”_

_“Cary?”_

_“Yes?”_

_“Have you mentioned to Alicia . . . anything about us?”_

_“Anything about us what?”_

_“Cary. Stop.”_

_“She knows we’ve gone out for a few drinks. We don’t brief each other on our sex lives.”_

_“Don’t mention anything else to her.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Just . . . don’t.”_

_“Kalinda . . . these games that you and Alicia play with one another--they need to stop.”_

_“I just want a little assurance of privacy. Do I have that from you?”_

_“Yeah, you have that from me.  Can I go now?”_

_“I’ll see you tonight._ ”

Tyler looks at Dev triumphantly. “See?”

Dev looks blank. “See what? All I heard was Cary and Kalinda setting up a date.”

“Are you crazy?  She doesn’t want Cary to talk to Alicia about anything.  She’s clearly still hung up on her.  Why else would she care?” Tyler can’t believe that Dev doesn’t see this; it was all there plain as anything, from the little catch in Kalinda’s voice to the hostility of Cary’s responses.  The fact that Kalinda was destined to be forever in love with Alicia is clearly not lost on Cary, and just as clearly he isn’t particularly happy about it.

“She might just be a professional who doesn’t want everyone in the tiny little legal world of Chicago gossiping about her.  Did you ever think of that?” Dev really doesn’t mean to come down quite so hard on Tyler--he knows how rough the last few months must have been for him, waiting in vain week after week for a Kalinda/Alicia conversation to pop up. It has gotten so bad that Tyler can’t even really enjoy the recordings of old conversation, knowing how long the nothingness between the two of them is going to last. But still, Cary and Kalinda are real and present, and there seems no point at all in pretending that Alicia and Kalinda still have feelings for one another, if in fact they ever had them at all.

Tyler shakes his head. “You just don’t get it.  Kalinda would only ask Cary something like that if it were _really_ important to her.”  He pauses for a second.  “Hey, I’ve got one over here--oh, wait.  It’s probably not very interesting.  It’s just Alicia talking to her daughter.”

Dev comes over anyway, and Tyler fiddles with the sound quality so they can both hear Alicia and Grace plainly.

_“Hi, Mom.  What’s up?”_

_“I’m going to be later than I thought.  Will you and Zach be all right for dinner?”_

_“Sure.  I . . . I have to meet a friend anyway.  I might not be home until after.”_

_“What friend?  You . . . I just realized that you haven’t been home lately.  Anything new in your life?”_

_“No . . . just someone from school.”_

_“A boy?”_

_“Mom!  No!”_

_“Ok, ok. I’ll see you later.  Love you.”_

Tyler looked at Dev.  “Nothing there, either for the soap opera or the warrant.”

Dev looks thoughtful. “I wonder.”

“You wonder what?  Even I can’t find anything interesting in Alicia talking to her daughter about dinner plans.” Tyler shakes his head and turns back to his work.

“I surveilled a conversation the other day between Kalinda and Grace. They were arranging to have some sort of lesson.”

Tyler pokes his head back over. “They were?  Alicia certainly doesn’t know that. So you think Kalinda is the ‘friend’ Grace is meeting tonight?”

Dev smiles. “Only one way to find out.  Let’s keep an eye on Grace and Kalinda for awhile.  This might get interesting.”

Tyler grins back at him.  Sometimes, some days, he really loves his job.

 


	14. Someone To Watch Over Me ("A Few Words")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alicia tries unsuccessfully to stop thinking about the past on her flight back to Chicago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I made it with six hours to spare this week instead of four--I count that as a win! I suppose I liked the episode--I tend to prefer bottle episodes because they're forced to focus on character and not external plot. (My dream bottle episode has always been Alicia and Kalinda locked in an elevator for the show's full 42 minutes, and it remains a dream even though it'll even more obviously never happen.) It was interesting to see season one Alicia back again, and JM was pretty masterful as she effortlessly morphed into the nicer, more naive version of Alicia that we once knew and loved. Still, it felt even more as though Kalicia were being wiped off the face of the earth, because even with all of that thinking about the past, Alicia never gave a flicker of thought to the fact that it was Kalinda, not Will, who really pushed her and helped her and made her into the person that she is today. It's maddening! But anyway, please consider this week's chapter an _amuse bouche_ as we await tonight's meal of 3.15 that we've been promised!

Alicia is glad that she and Cary are not sitting next to each other on the early morning flight from New York back home to Chicago. Cary and Clarke are engrossed in their own private world, one that they seem to slip into more and more frequently these days, and Alicia wants to close her eyes and not think about anything at all.  Writing and delivering that keynote speech--defining who she had been and who she currently is--had taken more out of her than she wants to admit.

That doesn’t work, of course. The same images from her past that she had been forced to relive return, even as she tries to push them away by concentrating on her new firm, her family, her future. Despite these valiant efforts, Alicia finds herself back in Will’s office, feeling once again the heavy weight of her responsibility lightening as he talks to her about the possibility of a job at his firm.  She is once again in the reception area, waiting with a smirking, slick-haired Cary who asks if she were here for the job. She hears her tentative “I think I am. You?” and the almost insolent, drawn-out “Yep” from Cary, who is so much the very definition of a cocky young associate that in retrospect he seems almost like a caricature. She remembers not liking him, remembers, in fact, hoping that she’d never have to see him again. Alicia finds herself smiling at that, glancing over at Cary as he laughs at something Clarke is saying. Whatever else has happened with the other relationships in her life, she and Cary have certainly become stronger and more solid over the years. There is no doubt that they both liked and respected one another now.

_Entitled_ , that’s what Cary had called her--he had thought that she seemed entitled when they first met that day. She had winced when he said it, but she had also immediately recognized its essential truth. She _was_ entitled. She felt that she deserved a nice house, good schools for her children, and the life that she had been promised. Having those things, losing them, getting them back, and keeping them forever is what has driven her so much over the past few years. She is suddenly a little ashamed of herself and how much she’s apparently changed from her idealistic days at Georgetown, when she thought she wanted to become a lawyer to help people.

Squinting again at that memory from the reception room, Alicia suddenly recalls the click of boots in the hallway that paused for a moment in the doorway and then clicked off once again.  _Kalinda_. She must have been there that day, too.  She must have seen Alicia sitting there in that ridiculous dress, trying in vain to look younger than she actually was, waiting with Cary to be called in. For some reason, the thought makes Alicia shiver. She knows that Kalinda would never remember that day, and that there is no chance at all that she would have given Alicia a thought at the time. But still, Alicia feels an intensification of the peculiar mixture of anger and longing that always seems to happen whenever any thought of Kalinda escapes its box and defiantly bobs its way to the surface of her mind.

_Kalinda can’t help but stop and stare at the woman sitting next to the generic, Ivy-looking kid in reception. She knew exactly who she is, but she is not sure why she feels so fascinated and appalled at seeing her there, looking so nervous and so hopeful. For some reason, she notices that Alicia Florrick is much prettier than she had imagined that she would be. Kalinda knows that she wants to despise her, this woman who chose to stick with someone like Peter Florrick instead of putting a knife through his heart.  She is sure that she_ would _despise her if they ever were to meet, but right now she can’t quite work herself up to it.  She walks away quickly before she can think too hard about what else she might be feeling about this beautiful woman who would certainly also despise her as well._

Alicia suddenly wonders about the interview that she had that day.  She remembers that Will often asks Kalinda to investigate any potential new hires, to make sure that they don’t have any skeletons that could be awkward for an employee of the firm. She knows, of course, that she had no skeletons to find, and that any investigation Kalinda had done would have shown that she was exactly as she appeared: she had been a successful, hard-working associate with a bright future who had chosen to put her career on hold in order to support her family. There was nothing at all that Kalinda could have discovered that could possibly have hurt her. All of her potential detriments were on the front page of the newspaper for the world to see; none were buried in a hidden past. But still, the idea of Kalinda investigating her before they had even met makes her feel oddly vulnerable.

_“There’s a lawyer that I’m trying to bring on board, but I’m getting some push back. I need you to put a dossier together on her.”_

_“Ok. Who is she?”_

_“Alicia Florrick.” Kalinda feels herself start, and she knows that Will notices._

_“Peter Florrick’s wife?”_

_“Yeah.  Why?”_

_“Nothing.” And it_ was _nothing, really. What did the name of the wife of a man who meant nothing to her in the end actually matter?_

_Later, she goes back to Will with some information. “I looked into Alicia Florrick.  I spoke to her old firm. She managed to win a couple dozen cases before taking a maternity leave, even managed to bring in some small clients.”_

_“But?”_

_“They were about to fire her.  She never knew, but they said she lacked a killer instinct.” Kalinda knows that she feels triumphant as she says this. She wonders why she is so determined to blame Alicia Florrick for what Peter Florrick did to her, for being weak enough to allow it to happen._

They’re about a half hour from landing in O’Hare, and Alicia’s thoughts are drifting from the interview to her first few cases at the firm. Kalinda was always there, giving Alicia’s cases much more time and attention than she gave Cary’s, or probably anyone else’s. One or twice, Alicia had wondered to herself exactly _why_ Kalinda had done that. _Guilt_ was always what she had always concluded, but still . . . Kalinda took her job very seriously. The fact that she was probably neglecting partner work to help Alicia just didn’t seem like something that Kalinda should have done, even if she had felt guilty about sleeping with Peter. Alicia’s temple suddenly throbs. She still has no good answer for any of it: why Kalinda helped her win cases, why she urged her to ask for things instead of waiting for them to be handed to her, why she told her when the competition between herself and Cary was going to be decided, why she gave her a strategy for winning it.  _Why she made me a better lawyer.  Why she ever acted like my friend._ Alicia closes her eyes once again, shrugging these questions off as she had done so many times in the past and willing her headache to go away.

_“How do you think she’s doing?”_

_Kalinda looks at Will, who is sitting next to her nursing a scotch. He’s asked the question casually, but she knows it’s not casual at all._

_She hesitates, not sure how much or how little she wants to tell him. “Alicia? Fine.”_

_“Just fine?  We’ll be deciding between her and Cary in a couple of months, and I just want . . .”_

_“I know.  She’s . . . I know that her old firm said that she lacked a killer instinct. But they weren’t exactly right.”_

_Will is looking at her. “What do you mean?”_

_“She might not be a killer, but she’s . . . strong. And the potential for the killer instinct; it’s there, deep down.”_

_“If she’s going to beat Cary, it can’t stay down that deep.”_

_“I know. I think . . . I’ll help.” Kalinda can’t tell him more than this, can’t say anything about how this odd, silent woman with the incredible smile can somehow see things in her that nobody else ever could, how they can communicate more in glances than she can talk to anyone else in words. She doesn’t know what to do about this connection: she can only recognize that it’s real and powerful, and that all she can do is . . . help._

_Will looks grateful. “Thanks, K. I really appreciate it.” They finish the rest of their drinks in silence._

As the PLEASE FASTEN SEATBELTS sign dings, Alicia obediently clicks hers into place and braces for the landing.  She has never liked the finality of landings--she would rather stay in the air, in transition from one thing to another, than arrive definitively at a destination. For some reason, she suddenly thinks about the old Ella Fitzgerald song that had been playing while she drank wine and tried to write her keynote:

_There's a somebody I'm longin' to see_

_I hope that he, turns out to be_

_Someone who'll watch over me_

_I'm a little lamb who's lost in the wood_

_I know I could, always be good_

_To one who'll watch over me_

  
Alicia feels the sudden prickle of tears. She knows that she can no longer count on Peter to be the one to watch over her, and she wonders if he ever had been that person at all.  It must be nice, she thinks, to have someone that you can absolutely count on in your life to look out for you and protect you. She sighs as the plane touches down, looking forward to seeing her children.

 


	15. Super Sad True Love Story ("Dramatics, Your Honor")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will dies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what can I say? I DIDN'T SIGN UP FOR THIS! And even though I'm a complete spoiler whore, I was just as shocked as the vast majority of the audience at Will's death, simply because The Good Wife isn't Scandal, and killing off a main character violently and abruptly is something that happens on Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead, but not here. As far as Kalicia goes, everything is obviously perfectly set up for a wonderful A/K bonding, but somehow I don't think we're getting that--instead, we'll be seeing Alicia's bonding with Diane, which frankly doesn't thrill me. (I always liked the fact that Diane remained the only person on the whole show who wasn't completely besotted by Alicia.) This could end up being a good narrative move for the show in general, or it might end up being a jump-the-shark disaster. I think we'll know a lot more which of the two it might be leaning toward by the end of the season. As for this fic, I took my last opportunity to tell a story from Will's point of view, and it was a great excuse to take a romp through some of my favorite canonical Will/Kalinda bromance moments. RIP, Will Gardner. You were a great character, and you will be missed even among the Kalicia shippers.

From a long way off, he hears Kalinda’s scream for the paramedics, and he wonders vaguely at her urgency.  He sees her face clearly, terrified, looking down at him. He has never seen Kalinda with an expression like that before, and he tries to ask her what happened. Her eyes are large and luminous.

_“We’re not like normal people, are we?” Will is sitting next to Kalinda in a bar, feeling oddly melancholy for a man who has recently started sleeping with the woman whom he considers to be the love of his life._

_“What are normal people like?”_

_“Emotional.”_

_“You’re emotional.”_

_“No. Sometimes I’m in the middle of an emotion, and I just look at myself and realize I’m not feeling anything. I just like acting acting someone who feels things.”_

_“You want to stop acting and actually feel.”_

_“Yeah.”_

_“Yeah.” Kalinda smiles and jabs him in the side._

_“Ow!”_

_“That’s what it feels like.”_

_“Thanks.”_

Will feels the sudden stab of pain in his chest as the paramedics place him on the gurney ( _That’s what it feels like)_ , but soon the pain goes away once again.  There is movement, and he realizes that he is in an ambulance. Kalinda’s hand is on his shoulder. He tries to turn to her, and she leans down and speaks to him softly.

“Hang on. We’re almost there.”

He wants to laugh, to tell her that “almost” is an eternity and nothing at all, but he still can’t speak.  

“What?” Kalinda is leaning down to him.  He must have made some sort of noise. He manages to shake his head just a little.

“Will, I’m going to call Alicia. She needs to be here. She’d want to be here. I promise I’ll get her.”

Will relaxes. If Kalinda promises to bring Alicia, he knows that Alicia will be here soon. Kalinda never breaks a promise. Kalinda knows that he needs Alicia, because Alicia has always been the glue that holds the two of them together. 

_“Will, I don’t want to be doing this for the next twenty years.” Kalinda sounds more serious than he has ever heard her being before._

_“Is it about Alicia?”_

_“Is . . . what?”_

_“Her leaving.”_

_Kalinda hesitates too long before responding. “No.”_

_He gets it.  It’s always about Alicia with Kalinda, just as it always is with him. They will both be doing this for the next twenty years._

He hears Kalinda saying something to the paramedics, feels her hand on his shoulder once again. He is glad that she is here. Kalinda can always fix everything.

She always wanted to fix Alicia, to fix the two of them. It has sometimes made him shake his head in wonderment--why does Kalinda want this?  Was it selfless, was it self-interested? He knows that she loves Alicia herself, maybe as much as he does. Why does she want to be his Cyrano?

_He is watching Alicia being interviewed on television when he hears Kalinda coming up behind him._

_“What do you think?”_

_His heart is is oddly full. “I think . . . she’s fantastic.”_

_“You should tell her.”_

_He snorts. “She knows.”_

_“You should tell her. People like to be told.” Her tone is so peculiar that he turns and looks at her._

_“You’re in a weird mood.”_

_“Yeah, I am.”_

Blackness and warmth, and then Will is surrounded by people shouting and shaking him, and Kalinda is gone. He wishes she were here. 

_“You and I were built for this, Kalinda. It’s what we do. We can look at normal people and want to be like them, but we can’t, really.”_

_“Is that supposed to be a pep talk? Because it’s terrible.”_

He finds he can’t laugh, even though he wants to. He hopes Kalinda will bring Alicia soon. He wants to see Alicia, to tell her that she was right, that he would not have been as angry if she had been any other partner, that he loved her enough to hate her. Kalinda, he thinks, can tell her that if I can’t. She always understands how he feels about Alicia before he understands it himself.

_Another bar, another evening._

_“Commitment.” Will takes another sip of his scotch and looks at Kalinda. “What do you think of commitment?”_

_“I think it’s something . . . people do.”_

_“I saw Alicia with her daughter, and I thought, maybe I can do that.” He glances at Kalinda, who is studying him closely. “You don’t think I can?”_

_“No, I think you can do what you want.” Kalinda hesitates.  “What do you want?”_

_“Something more than work.”_

_“Kids?”_

_“I don’t know. I spent my whole life getting ahead. Sometimes I can’t figure out why.”_

_“Do you know what Alicia wants?”_

_“No. But I’ll ask. If you don’t know something, ask, right?” He takes another swallow._

But Kalinda knew, he thinks suddenly now. Kalinda knew what Alicia wanted. Why didn’t she tell him? He feels a flash of something that might have been pain. Kalinda always understood Alicia better than he did, better than anybody did. He doesn’t think Alicia ever knew that, not really.

He knows that something had happened between the two of them, but he had never asked either about it directly.  Alicia’s pain was obvious every time he touched her, and Kalinda withdrew from him for months.  But whatever it was, he knows that Kalinda has never stopped wanting to take care of Alicia, and to take care of him as well. If one thing makes him feel safe right now, it is that certainty: Kalinda will always be there, and will always make everything right.

_“What do you want from life, Will?” It’s nearly three years ago, and Kalinda is telling him that she wants to leave the firm._

_“What do I want? I don’t know. Suddenly, this is about me?”_

_“Do you want the same things as Alicia?”_

_“Alicia? I . . . I don’t know. There’s a vast difference between us.”_

_“Because she’s married?”_

_“Yeah, for one. And she has kids, and I . . . what are we talking about here?”_

_“She separated from her husband.”_

_“What?”_

_“Alicia. She separated from Peter.”_

_“It’s not . . . there are too many issues.”_

_“I know. There always are.”_

She gives him Alicia that day. He gives her back a year later.

_“You gave her my case, too?” Kalinda is not quite meeting his eyes.  Will nods._

_“Will . . . if this is your way of trying to make things better between us . . .”_

_It is.  Of course it is.  But he merely says, “It’s my way of trying to save your ass.” And he knows, and Kalinda knows, that it really amounts to the same thing in the end._

“ _Even solitary is better than this_.” He remembers saying that to Jeffrey, right before he went up to the judge. And he had been right: solitary has been Will’s state of being for most of his life, even during those glorious Alicia months. Solitary is Kalinda’s life all the time, except possibly for glimmers during those two years that she and Alicia were really friends. Solitary is bearable; it’s how most people get through every day. He truly didn’t understand his client’s horror of it--if he had, maybe, maybe  . . .

_"At some point, Kalinda, you're going to have to confide in someone."_

_"Do you know what I've discovered? I'm never going to have to confide in anyone."_

But Kalinda had been wrong, and maybe Jeffrey was right.  Maybe getting knocked around is better than that, after all. Alicia . . .

“ _We’re not like normal people, are we_?” He wishes Kalinda would come back. He suddenly wonders if he will ever finish writing _A Failure of Principle: War’s Impact on Supreme Court Justices_.  Maybe next summer. A failure of principle--that’s what went wrong with Alicia. Their war had an impact on it. Or maybe it wasn’t that. Maybe Alicia had too many principles. He wants to tell Kalinda that he suddenly understands everything, that he has a clarity about Alicia and her pain, and Kalinda’s pain, and his own, in a way that he never has before. You can make her see, he thinks. It’s all going to be all right--it doesn’t need to be this way. As soon as Kalinda and Alicia get here, he’ll be able to tell them that. Why do we make love so complicated, when it’s really the simplest thing in the world? We can't survive in solitary.

 _Life is overrated._ He had said that to Kalinda yesterday, but he knows she knew that he didn’t really mean it. And suddenly Alicia is rushing toward him, touching him, kissing him, and he is whole again.

 


	16. A Lot of Predictable Angst ("The Last Call")

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, you guys! There were two actual Kalicia conversations! Granted, they were done by telephone, so Archie and Jules didn't actually have to be on the same set, but still! I can't help being cheered by them. There's no question at all that Alicia thought that Kalinda was absolutely the only person in her orbit with whom she could be halfway vulnerable--she wanted to talk to Kalinda about HOW SHE WAS FEELING. Kalinda wasn't all that interested in talking herself, so I'm interpreting that as general ambivalence after having been hurt and abandoned. But really, who are we kidding? It wouldn't take too much effort from Alicia for Kalinda to come roaring back into her life, and maybe, MAYBE we'll be seeing that little effort. That might be patented "wishful thinking," but I'm keeping hope alive until the season ends without giving us a genuine, face-to-face Kalicia scene.
> 
> (And yeah, I know my ending here is exasperating. But I don't want to cheat us out of that canon scene until I'm sure that we're not getting it. Sorry!)

Kalinda feels the buzzing of her cell phone before she actually hears the sound. Even before she glances at the screen, she feels the presence of Alicia on the other end of the line. Kalinda does not even need her special Alicia-sense to know that: Alicia has been calling her every night since Will died, always around midnight, and always after she has had a couple of glasses of wine. Kalinda is a little ashamed of the flash of something that makes her wish she could let the call roll over to voice mail just this once. She pushes that little niggle aside and taps “Answer” more firmly than is actually necessary.

“Hello?” 

“Hi.” Alicia voice is hoarse, and Kalinda’s heart turns over at the sound of it. 

“How are you?” Kalinda’s voice is gentle, because she can’t sound any other way when she hears Alicia’s raw vulnerability.  Any hint of Alicia in pain has always been her undoing. But she also feels ambivalence pulsing through her like a living creature--she wants nothing more than to be the one to comfort Alicia, and she wants nothing more than to be rid of the responsibility of Alicia Florrick once and for all.  Will’s death has taken so much out of her that she has almost nothing left for anyone, even Alicia.

“The same. I just . . . I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where I belong anymore.”

Kalinda is quiet, thinking about that. She can’t really remember the last time she felt as though she belonged somewhere. 

“Kalinda?”

“Yeah?”

“I can’t . . . I can’t stop thinking about that voice mail that Will left me the day he died. I know that it probably wasn’t anything personal, but he hadn’t called me in so long . . . “

Kalinda wonders how it could be possible to feel simultaneously so filled with an aching love and so utterly exasperated. She has heard all too much about that voice mail over the past week, and she knows that there will never be an answer that will give Alicia the closure that she wants so desperately. She hesitates a little before responding.

“Alicia, I think . . .”

“Yes?”

“You have to let it go. Will showed you over and over how he felt about you. Whatever he would have said in that voice mail would never have changed anything.”

“It was . . . complicated, between Will and me.  It was even more complicated once I left.”

Kalinda sighs. “Complicated” is how it is between Alicia and herself.  Between Alicia and Will, not nearly so much.

Alicia’s voice is thick with wine and tears. “Grace tried to tell me that Will is with God now. I almost bit her head off.”

Kalinda can’t help smiling at that; she could picture that scene as if she were there herself. “Yeah.”

“She asked me why not believing in God was any better than believing.  I told her that it’s just . . . truer, not better. It’s just not wishful thinking.”

Kalinda considers that. She feels exactly the way Alicia feels about religion; a Catholic education will tend to do that to an adult. But she also knows how many other things, _real_ things, important things, that Alicia dismisses from her universe as merely wishful thinking, if she thought about them at all. Will was clearly one of those things.

“Alicia . . . Will loved you.  He loved you absolutely, as much as he was capable of loving anybody. If you don’t know that . . .” Kalinda feels a little wave of sadness as she says this.  Will did love Alicia as much as he had ever loved anybody.  He’d even told Alicia that--accidentally, impulsively, but still, he’d done it--and Alicia still didn’t seem to know it.  Sometimes Kalinda thinks to herself that Alicia has got to be the most self-involved person in the world, and at other times she marvels at how little Alicia seems to realize just how much . . . 

“I don’t know.” She hears a ragged breath, and Kalinda knows that Alicia is crying again. Kalinda’s frustration melts away as she feels tears prickling her own eyes. At that moment, all she wants on earth is to be able to give Alicia even the slightest semblance of relief, no matter what the cost might be.

“And Alicia--I know you loved Will. I know that you couldn’t tell him that. Maybe you don’t even really know it yourself. But I do.  Will was . . .” Kalinda feels her own voice breaking, and she takes  a breath to steady herself. “Will was . . . he was worth loving.”

“I know that.” Alicia was crying openly now. “I know he was. I don’t know why . . . everything turned out this way. It might have been different.”

Kalinda nods, forgetting for a second that Alicia couldn’t see her. Of course it might have been different. She herself shakes off might-have-been’s every morning with the cobwebs of sleep, before she puts up her hair, slips on her boots, and faces her day.  She gets it, but getting it brings the flash of impatience (this time with a chaser of bitterness) back once again.

“Kalinda? Do you think . . . would you like to come over? The kids are at the house with Peter, and I could . . . I could use some company tonight.” Alicia’s voice is low, and Kalinda knows exactly how much it must have cost her to ask for this. She feels her heart turning over, feels blood roaring in her ears.

“Alicia . . .” Kalinda can barely speak, because she can’t seem to figure out if she wants to sprint toward the car that would take her flying to Alicia’s apartment, or if she would rather crawl into bed and sob herself.

“I know I have no right to ask you to come.” Alicia’s is speaking so quietly now that Kalinda has to strain to hear. “I’m sorry . . . I’m sorry I left without telling you.”

“Why did you?” Kalinda sounds a little more aggressive than she might have wanted to, but the strain of everything is getting to her. And she wants to hear the answer more than she cares to admit to herself.

“I don’t know.”

“You _do_ know.  We were getting better. We talked in Minnesota. We talked for _hours_ that night. And then . . .”

“Then I ran. Not right away, I know. I ran from you slowly.  I ran from Will quickly, but apparently that’s what I do when I think someone . . .” Kalinda realizes then just how much Alicia has had to drink before this call. She starts to shake at the implication behind Alicia’s words and decides what to do before she can even finish the thought--she wants to go to Alicia, to take the risk. She wants it as much as she’s ever wanted anything before.

And then she hears it, tinny and insistent through the phone, much farther away than Alicia’s voice but still unmistakable. “Mom?” _Grace_. Kalinda hears Alicia gasp, hears her whisper “hold on a minute.” Then she hears nothing at all except the sound of her own pounding heart.

Kalinda knows what has happened well before Alicia returns to the phone. Grace has been sad and depressed all week, worried about her mother and about the sort of larger existential questions that Kalinda only half-remembers having had herself. She undoubtedly decided to come home from her father’s early to check up on her mother.  Kalinda can’t quite manage to hate Grace for wanting to take care of Alicia, an impulse with which she herself is all too familiar. But hating Zach is perfectly fair game: what possessed him to let Grace drive his car home?  It’s midnight, after all, and Grace just got her license a couple of months ago.  What was he _thinking_?

A rustling sound, and then Alicia is back. “Kalinda . . .”

“I know. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“I’m sorry.” Alicia’s voice is shaking, and Kalinda can’t quite speak for a moment. 

“Good night, Alicia.” Kalinda clicks off her phone and stares into space, wondering exactly what was going to happen between the two of them next.

 


	17. An Unexpected Bond or Two ("A Material World")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter and Kalinda finally talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So . . . yeah. After an actual *conversation* (albeit by telephone) in 5.16, it was a little bit of a downer to go back to Kalicia-less business as usual in 5.17. And no matter how much the Kings try to sell me on the great new friendship between Alicia and Diane, I'm not buying. Diane doesn't like Alicia, doesn't understand Alicia, and above all else would *never* get drunk with Alicia even after Will's funeral. It would obviously have been much more organic, and much truer to character, to have Alicia and Kalinda go out together and talk. But . . . whatever. I still haven't abandoned all hope, but obviously, if we get through the entire season with no real Kalicia interaction at all, even *I'm* going to throw in the towel. As I post this, we have two hours until 5.18 airs, and maybe it will contain something wonderful in it. As for this chapter, I felt like writing about Peter, because I've always wished that we could have another Peter/Kalinda scene or two on the show--the two of them were pretty terrific in their single scene in season two. I hope you enjoy what I've done with them here.

“Get out of my house, Peter. Get . . .” Alicia’s cold fury echoes in the kitchen well after her departure.

Peter leaves, blood roaring in his ears and unsaid words choking him. He has his cell phone out before the elevator doors have closed, and before they open again on the ground floor he is connected to Eli.

“Peter? What’s wrong?” Eli sounds tired, as he has sounded almost continuously for the week since Will died.

“Do you have Kalinda Sharma’s cell number?” Peter knows how odd and abrupt he sounds, and he knows that he can get what he wants any one of a number of other ways. But Eli can get him the information quickly, and Peter wants to talk to Kalinda tonight.

“Kalin . . . Peter, what’s going on?  Why do you want to call Kalinda?”

He ignores the question. “Eli, do you have her number?”

“Yes, I have it, but I don’t think this is a good . . . Peter, what’s happened?” Peter pays no attention to the open concern in Eli’s voice. He does not want comforting or conversation; he simply wants to call Kalinda Sharma. He feels the need of that urgently, even before he stops to ask himself why he might want it so badly. He and Kalinda have not really spoken in almost three years, when she told him that someone in the SA’s office knew about their one-night stand.  Peter remembers that evening vividly, both because of the information Kalinda was bringing and because she seemed in absolute agony over the pain that it would cause Alicia if she found out about it.

“Eli . . .” Peter really doesn’t want to play the familiar I’m-the-Governor card, not tonight. “Please. Just give it to me.”

Eli stops asking questions and gives him the number, which Peter punches into his cell. “Peter . . . be careful.” Eli sounds resigned to whatever was going to happen next.

Peter grunts. “I’m always careful.” 

 

***

Kalinda looks at the screen of her buzzing cell phone, hesitating. She doesn’t recognize the number, and she has no desire to talk to anyone right now. But since a call from within Chicago is not likely to be a telemarketer, she decides to tap “Answer” rather than “Ignore.”

“Hello?”

“Kalinda? This is Peter Florrick.” Peter’s voice is certain, the voice of someone who knows exactly who he is, how he comes across, and what he wants. Kalinda remembers that voice well and wished that she did not.

She doesn’t respond for a second, trying to decide what to do. A phone call from Peter Florrick is the last thing that she had expected tonight, and possibly the very last activity on her very long list of unwanted things that she wanted to happen.

Peter is clearly growing impatient. “Kalinda?”

Kalinda sighs. “Peter, what’s this about? Why are you calling me?”

“I just want to talk for a few minutes. I have some . . . matters that I’d like you to clear up for me. Can you meet me somewhere?” Peter sounds a touch less commanding, a bit less certain. 

“No.” Kalinda is a little startled at the firmness of her own voice.

“What do you mean, _no_?” Peter sounds baffled, and Kalinda smiles slightly. She realizes how rarely Peter hears that word from anyone working for him, and possibly from anyone at all in his life.

“I mean, no, we’re not going to meet. I’m not going to risk . . . I’m not interested in meeting you in public. And you shouldn’t be interested in meeting me, either.” Kalinda can’t imagine why Peter has decided to talk to her, but she knows that she wants no part of it. She has carefully avoided any work for Peter ever since Alicia found out about their one-night stand, and she would never consider sitting down with him in a social situation. 

“It’s not like that.” Peter sounds suddenly abashed, and Kalinda is suddenly aware of just how upset he was; something had clearly happened tonight. “I just want . . . I just need to talk to you. Please.” Kalinda can’t quite get a read on whether the pleading, tired note in his tone is calculated to manipulate her or genuine. Either way, she knows that she would not be sitting down and chatting with Peter Florrick face to face.

“We’re talking now.” 

Peter sighs, and Kalinda knows that he finally realizes that a telephone conversation was all he was going to get tonight. “I want to know . . . I want to know exactly what happened between Will Gardner and Alicia.” 

Kalinda is starting to see where all this is going, and she feels a flash of anger. “I think that’s a question that you need to ask your wife, not me.”

“I’m asking you.” Peter’s voice is hard, but Kalinda is able to match his tone with a hardness of her own.

“What makes you think that I know anything about it?”

“I think you know everything about it. You and Alicia . . . I think you know how she feels about things.” Peter’s tone is odd, and Kalinda suddenly feels a flash of kinship with him. Wanting to know how Alicia feels about things . . . yes, she knows exactly what that was like.

Kalinda directs the conversation away from the subject of Alicia and Will. “Peter, Alicia and I . . . we’re not friends anymore, not really. We haven’t been friends since . . .” She doesn’t finish the sentence, and she doesn’t have to.

“Really?” Peter sounds genuinely surprised. “When Alicia talks about you, it sounds . . . it sounds as though you’re important to her. I just assumed that . . .” 

Kalinda feels a flicker of emotion at that. She wonders what Alicia could have said to make Peter think that, and she wonders why Alicia might have been talking about her at all. 

Peter breaks the silence with something unexpected. “She threw me out tonight.” His voice is hollow, and Kalinda feels another unexpected flash of kinship. She knows exactly--painfully--what it feels like when the full depth of Alicia’s icy fury is unleashed, how it is when you are the one who is tossed suddenly and abruptly out of her life.  Kalinda doesn’t have to ask Peter what happened. She knows Alicia’s pain over Will as if she were feeling it herself, and she knows all too well how Alicia lashes out when she is in that kind of pain.

Kalinda does not say anything, but questions click through her mind rapidly. She wonders whether this was just a separation--and when have Peter and Alicia not been separated, exactly?--or if Alicia is actually thinking of a divorce. She wonders how Alicia is doing; she has not heard from her since the night she almost went over to Alicia’s apartment, and she hasn’t quite been able to get herself to call and check up on her. She wonders about Grace, from whom she has not heard since Will died.

Kalinda is suddenly aware that Peter is breaking the silence himself. “I deserved it. I couldn’t take seeing her like that, over someone else. I should have . . . been different.”

This one Kalinda can answer. “We all should have been different.” The sadness that fills her is unlike both the keen pain of losing Will and the dull ache of seeing Alicia and knowing that they will never have what they once had between them.

Peter sighs and is quiet for a moment. “You never answered my question about Alicia and Will.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“It doesn’t matter, not really.” Peter’s voice is low, and Kalinda knows that the conversation is nearly over. “He’s dead, and whoever she might love, it’s not me.” Kalinda feels a pang, because she can’t keep _or me, either_ from flashing through her mind. As she says good-bye to Peter and clicks off her phone, she snorts to herself at its utter absurdity.

 


	18. I Thought She Was Gay ("All Tapped Out")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alicia recalls a conversation that she and Cary had on the day of Will's death.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you all know, I'm a big fan of the NSA geeks: I like the storyline, and consequently I liked this episode's Case of the Week. (I'm sorry that in my last geek installment, in which Jeff did not appear, I moved him out of the NSA entirely to create a new Iphone app. I'm also sorry that I can't write about them again this time, because Peter was so effective in shutting down the warrant.) As far as Kalicia goes, of course, we got nothing at all, and I'm slowly starting to become resigned to the possibility that we may actually end the season without a single F2F Kalicia scene. That will really be the saddest thing of all, of course, because even cock-eyed optimists like me will logically need to throw in the towel of hope at that point. But anyway, we still have four more episodes after this one, so hope is still officially in play. Schwarmerei, this chapter is for you, because I know how much you wanted me to write a bonus chapter riffing on "I thought she was gay" from 5:15. It seems to me that Alicia's whole conversation that day with Cary might well have been imprinted on her mind enough to make it over to the other side of the Will grief, and hence this installment. I hope you all enjoy it!

“What’s happening with your Finn Polmar case?” Cary’s voice is stiff. Alicia knows that she needs to make it better between the two of them, but she is not sure she has the energy to manage that right now. The burst of righteous indignation that had exploded from her at the State’s Attorney was effective but short-lived. It had passed almost as quickly as it had come, leaving her drained and shaken.

“It went well.  They’re backing off--I don’t think they’re going to be targeting Finn anymore.” Alicia cannot explain to Cary the peculiar bond she feels with Finn, who had tried to help Will and who had been with him in the minutes when everything that had made Will _Will_ was seeping away. She only knew that she wanted to help Finn, even if working against him with a paying client like the Grants would probably have been the smarter thing for a managing partner at Florrick Agos to have chosen.

“Good. Alicia--“ Cary hesitates. “We need to have a conversation.” He isn’t looking at her, and Alicia knows that he is not looking forward to what they needed to say to each other any more than she is.

“I know.”

“You talked to Diane about merging without asking me about it first.” It’s a statement rather than a question, with more hurt than anger behind it.

“Cary, it was just . . . it was after Will’s funeral. We’d been drinking, and . . .” _And I forgot that I had a partner at all_ , she finishes silently to herself. _I couldn’t think of anything beyond myself right at that moment.  I’ve barely remembered that I have children all week, so it’s understandable that all traces of the responsibility that I owe to you had vanished too_.

Cary relaxes a little, his face visibly softening. Alicia realizes that he genuinely likes her, and the thought touches her. “I get it. But we need to talk about these things. We’re doing fine, but you know as well as I do that most new law firms don’t make it these days. One wrong decision, and we’ll be just like all the rest of them. If we’re going to be wrong, we need to be wrong together.”

Alicia nods. “You’re right. I’m sorry.  I really _am_ sorry.”  And she realizes that she actually is. She likes Cary, trusts him, is glad to have him for a partner. The very last thing she wants to do right now is to jeopardize any of that. She suddenly feels the prickle of tears that has become an all-too-familiar sensation this week.

Cary is looking at her carefully. “How are you doing?” His voice is gentle, and she can tell that he really wants to know.

She starts to tell him that she’s fine but changes course into a little more accurate version of the truth. “I’m a little better now than I was. It’s good to be back to work, I think.”

Cary nods. “If you need more time . . . I promise we won’t burn the place down or organize a coup.”

The joke makes her feel better immediately, and she smiles at him. “Thanks. I don’t think we’d come out ahead in a fire insurance claim.”

He tilts his head at her, Cary-cocker-spaniel-style. “We’re not Lockhart Gardner yet, you know. We don’t look for blood in the water. We actually all _want_ to work together and turn this place into something that can change the world.”

Alicia smiles a little sadly to herself. Sometimes the fifteen years that separate herself and Cary seem more like fifty. She can remember feeling like that a long time ago, through what seems like a frosted prism. She decides to change the subject. “How are you doing? Are you still seeing Kalinda?” Alicia flushes as soon as she says that last sentence, and feeling ridiculous for it makes her flush all the more. _Where on earth did that come from_ , she wonders.

Cary looks at her a little quizzically, clearly wondering exactly the same thing. “Yes . . . well, sort of. Kalinda’s . . .  I don’t think she’s doing very well right now.”

“What do you mean?” Alicia knows that she’s asking the question a little too quickly, a bit too intensely. But she doesn’t care right now. It’s hard for her to admit to herself just how much she has been thinking about Kalinda over the past several days, ever since Kalinda almost came over before Grace interrupted them. For some reason, she hasn’t been able to call Kalinda back after that, and Kalinda hasn’t called her. But that hasn’t kept her from poking over and over at that feeling that she had gotten when she realized that she was about to see Kalinda, a feeling that simultaneously thrilled her and terrified her. 

Cary shook his head. “She and Will . . . I hadn’t realized just how close they were, but Will dying . . . it’s really done something to her. I can’t . . .  when we . . . she’s not the way she usually is. She’s not herself.” Cary looks at her, more than a little embarrassed.

Alicia stares back at him, suddenly realizing that he is talking not about conversations with Kalinda, but sex with Kalinda. Kalinda is not herself when she and Cary have sex. She feels that same little niggle of something that she had felt the day Cary had told her that he and Kalinda were “seeing each other,” a conversation that she somehow still recalled vividly even though it occurred on the very same day as Will’s death. The niggle then was such that even Cary had inquired about it, causing Alicia to blurt out the first thing that came into her head: “I thought she was gay.” She knew, of course, that Kalinda was “flexible” rather than gay, because every single conversation that she’s ever had with Kalinda about anything having to do with sex is peculiarly burned into her consciousness.  But the idea of Kalinda’s being “flexible” with Cary seemed to bother her more than it could rationally be expected to do so.  "I thought she was gay" was what had come out of her mouth, but it was not the thought that had actually come into her head.

_I thought she liked me. I didn’t think she liked you. I’m her favorite. You’re not._

Alicia shakes her head at the memory, wondering where on earth her subconscious mind had gotten something as ridiculous as that. She closes her mind firmly to it now, as well as to the uncomfortable vision of Kalinda and Cary, resolving never to think about either ever again.

 

 

 


	19. A Walk Down Memory Lane ("Tying the Knot")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colin Sweeney sometimes sees the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I've officially given up hoping for any significant future Kalicia moments, but we'll always have the past. And because the cold open to this episode was a callback to the cold open of season one's "Hybristophilia," it gave me a great excuse to rewatch in order to use some of it in this fic chapter. And what a great episode it was, featuring one of the best Kalicia bar scenes ever, along with the introduction of Elsbeth, who was dealing with a B storyline case of Peter's in what would become her trademark brilliant manner. Eli was used effectively, Colin Sweeney wasn't as horrible as I generally find him, and somehow they managed all of these competing storylines without the pacing seeming rushed in any way. Man, this show used to be *good*. (The most unintentionally funny line in it was when Eli told Peter that Elsbeth was replacing his former lawyer Henry Gold because "when the Obama White House calls, you gotta go." But actually, Henry left because the Grant White House called and asked him to head up B-613!) But anyway, let's bravely face the Kalicialess future together as this season winds mercifully down. I hope you enjoy this week's installment!

Kalinda is alone in the bar next to the courthouse, sipping a scotch, watching the bartender, and willfully thinking about nothing in particular. She hears someone settling into the stool next to hers and knows who it is even before he speaks. 

“Ms. Sharma.” Colin Sweeney’s purring tone can make even her name sound like a mocking challenge. “How are you this evening? It was lovely to see you in court.”

Kalinda swallows and turns to face him directly. “I understand the judge dismissed the case. You and Renata should be celebrating tonight. Where is she?”

Sweeney laughs. “She’s . . . celebrating with another friend tonight, a female friend. She and I will celebrate together later, and we’ll celebrate hard. I’m sure you know how that is.” 

Kalinda forces herself not to roll her eyes. “No. How is it, exactly?”

Sweeney shakes his head at her and changes the subject. “Pity that Alicia wasn’t able to defend Renata herself. Diane was formidable, but there’s no substitute for Alicia. Judges swoon before her. It’s comical, really, but it’s a wonderful weapon.”

Kalinda resolves to keep the conversation as neutral as possible, knowing that the worst thing anyone can do with Colin Sweeney is to be pulled into his game. “Alicia was a witness. You found a way to use her to your advantage, whether she was your lawyer on the case or not.”

Sweeney chuckles at that. “Yes, poor thing. That was Diane’s stroke of brilliance, making Alicia appear compromised. Still, it was just a pity that Alicia had to stumble into the murder scene. She’s much more helpful to me as a lawyer than she was as a witness.”

This time Kalinda rolls her eyes before she can stop herself. “It’s not the first time that’s happened to her at your house.”

“True. The detectives were very kind to point that out to her.  And if memory serves, you were the first person she called for help with that little incident four years ago. But not this time. Things seem to have . . . changed.” Sweeney watches Kalinda carefully, clearly hoping for a reaction.

Kalinda does not give him one. Her face is carefully frozen, seemingly indifferent. But at his words, the night of Sheila’s murder is suddenly back in a rush, painful only because of how truly precious a memory much of it is for her.

_“They fired him.” She and Alicia are watching Cary stalk off without a backward glance for either one of them._

_“They kept you?” Kalinda knows the answer before Alicia responds. She feels an indescribable sense of relief, knowing that Alicia is safe, and that all of Kalinda’s careful work in making sure that she_ was _safe had not been in vain._

_Alicia shrugs. “I got a client, last minute, through Peter.”_

_“Smart.”_

_“Kalinda, don’t.” Alicia’s voice is pained._

It all feels so long ago to Kalinda right now. She wonders exactly when Alicia stopped worrying about using Peter’s influence and started embracing it. Doing so _was_ smart--her past self had been right about that.  But Kalinda isn’t really sure that realizing the truth of that has actually made Alicia happy.

Sweeney breaks into her reverie.  “Nothing to say? You’ve been oddly silent.”

Kalinda shrugs. “Alicia and I work at different firms now. There would have been no reason for her to call me. We don’t bump into each other much anymore.”

Sweeney smirks at that. “Oh, come on, Ms. Sharma. I do have eyes, you know.  These has been many a night in which visions of you and Alicia _celebrating_ keeps me delightfully engaged.”

Kalinda takes another sip of her drink to steady her pulse, which has unfortunately started to race just a little. She doesn’t answer Sweeney.

_She and Alicia are fighting over the cell phone in the bar, dissolving into laughter before either of them can win._

_“One night. No repercussions.” Kalinda looks impish._

_“And tomorrow?” Alicia really wants to know the answer to this one._

_“Tomorrow you wake up.”_

_“It’s just not me, Kalinda.” Kalinda can tell how much regret is laced into those words._

_“Everything is you. Everything you want to be you, is you.” Kalinda has never meant anything more than she means that statement, and she has no idea then just how often she will replay the ironies of this particular conversation as she lies awake in the dark._

Kalinda shakes off the memory and turns to Sweeney. “What do you want, Mr. Sweeney? Why are you here?”

“Why, having a drink, the same as you.” Sweeney lifts his glass and nods to Kalinda. “Cheers!”

Kalinda doesn’t lift her drink in return, but she does take a sip of it, and her action seems to satisfy Sweeney. “What do you think about love, Ms. Sharma? I’m in love right now. Renata means everything to me. I can’t imagine my life without her.  What about you?”

“I’m happy for you.” Kalinda takes another swallow of scotch and calculates if there are going to be enough sips of it left to get her through this conversation.

“It’s a shame that Alicia is so _traditional_. Even if she ever does manage to break free of that monstrous husband of hers, she’s never going to be able to have the . . . shall we say, the _imagination_ . . . to know what she could have with you.” Sweeney pauses to stare into space, clearly having quite enough imagination to picture it for himself.

_“Are you gay?” It is that same night from four years earlier, less than an hour before Alicia would discover the first murdered woman in Sweeney’s house. Alicia is as tipsy as Kalinda has ever seen her be. Kalinda looks at her quickly._

_“Oh, come on. We’re talking about every single little detail of my life. It’s a_ simple _question.”_

_“I’m . . . private.” It’s the most that Kalinda can manage, and it does not satisfy Alicia in the slightest._

_“Oh, come_ on _. . .”_

_“What does it matter.” Kalinda’s heart is beating faster than usual._

_“It doesn’t.”  Kalinda can see that, for whatever reason, Alicia is lying to her.  This question matters a great deal._

_“Then why do you want to know?”_

_“Because I do. And how is this fair? I talk to you about everything.”_

_“I didn’t say it was. You like to talk about your life. I don’t like to talk about mine.”_

Kalinda forces herself out of the past once again.  “I don’t think you know Alicia quite as well as you think you do.” Kalinda is not precisely sure why she utters this sentence to Sweeney, but she knows it to be true. Alicia might be indecisive, might be too doggedly certain that she needs to live up to a particular image that she has of herself.  But she does not lack imagination; her life might well be simpler if she did.

Sweeney raises his glass to Kalinda again. “Wouldn’t it be lovely for you if that were true? She’s quite attractive, that Alicia. I know _you_ don’t need my porn star Google glasses to see it. You want her.”

Kalinda puts down a bill and gets up. “I think we’ve had enough of a conversation, Mr. Sweeney. Good luck with your wedding.”

Sweeney picks up the bill and hands it back to her. “I’m buying this round, Ms. Sharma.  You’ve provided me with enough delicious images to last me for several nights.  Can we expect you at the wedding?”

Kalinda shakes her head and smiles a little. “I don’t think so. But thank you.”

“You really must come. It’s going to be the event of the decade. I do think that Renata is finally the one, you know. There’s nothing like a woman willing to murder for you.  If that isn’t true love, what is?”

Kalinda stares at him, forcing every muscle in her face to remain locked into position. Sweeney sees her expression and smiles. “I’m joking, Ms. Sharma. Where’s that sense of humor of yours?”

Kalinda gets up to leave. Her impassive expression had nothing to do with whether or not Renata had really killed Morgan Donnelly, because Kalinda had always assumed that she had.  An entirely separate thought had flashed through her mind at Sweeney’s words.

 _He can’t know anything about Nick_. And even though Kalinda knows that he couldn’t possibly, that Sweeney and Nick moved in entirely different circles, she is more unnerved than she can remember having been in a long time.

 


	20. Getting Blood From A Stone ("The Deep Web")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grace provides wise counsel to Alicia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't have much to say about "The Deep Web" that isn't whining. I'm tired of the STUBBORNNESS of the lack of Kalicia scenes. I'm weary of Finn and what will clearly be an important season six arc. I'm annoyed by the awkwardness of forcing Kalinda to have relationships with characters like Diane to make up for the fact that she isn't having any relationship at all with Alicia, her ostensible raison d'etre. So . . . whatever. Here we are, with two episodes to go in the season and very little hope for anything decent to happen for us. This week's chapter is short both because the episode really had NO hook on which to build a missing and scene and because I'm going away for the weekend and won't be back until right before 5:21 airs. So apologies for its not being meatier, and I hope to do better next week.

“She’s in bed again.” Grace stands in the threshold of Zach’s room, watching him as he hunches over his computer.

Zach turns to look at his sister. “Well, it’s late enough for bed, for someone who gets up early. It’s not like it was before.” Zach tries to sound offhand, but Grace knows that he is as worried about their mother as she is.

“Grandma was here this afternoon. Maybe they had a fight.” Grace likes Veronica, but she knows that her visits tend to put her mother on edge.

“I don’t think they did. I was in my room, and they just seemed to be talking. Mom went out right after Grandma left.” Zach frowns a little to himself, suddenly wishing that he had paid a bit more attention to what had been going on in the living room.

“Where did she go?” Alicia didn’t usually go out in the evenings, and Grace couldn’t imagine why she would have gone out that night.

“I don’t know--she came back and got into bed. I wouldn’t worry about it.” Zach turns back to his computer.

“I’m going to talk to her.” Grace steps away from her brother, who shrugs.

 

***

“Mom?” Grace knocks softly at the door and then enters when she doesn’t hear an answer. “Are you all right?”

Alicia jerks awake suddenly, looking at her daughter. “I’m fine. I’m just a little tired.”

“I’m sorry I woke you up, but it’s only 9:00. I was worried about you. Where did you go tonight?”

Alicia hesitates. “I just went out for a walk. I thought I’d get something to eat, but then . . . I decided not to.” Alicia pictures Daniel sitting alone in the restaurant once again, waiting for her.  Waiting for a perfectly innocent drink that, of course, was really far more than a perfectly innocent drink. She starts to feel a little queasy and closes her eyes to block out the image.

“Mom?” Grace’s obvious anxiety forces Alicia to open her eyes and look at her daughter, who is biting her lower lip.

“Grace, I’m all right. Really. I just need to sleep now.” Alicia knows that she should feel guilty about how everything--her reaction to Will’s death, the tension with Peter--must be affecting her children, but right now she is too tired to care about anything except how heavy her head feels, and how badly she wants to close her eyes and escape from the buzzing confusion that her life has become.

“Mom, can I ask you something?” Grace sounds tentative, and Alicia braces herself for what might be coming. Neither of her children has ever asked directly about the current status of their parents’ marriage, although Zach had muttered something about “Bill and Hillary” when she and Owen had confronted him about the bong. Alicia knows that it is only a matter of time before she and Peter need to have a serious talk with the kids; they probably should have done it already, but neither of them (for very different reasons) is any good at confronting problems.

But Grace does not appear to want to talk about her father. “Mom . . . do you remember the other night, when I came home early from Dad's to check on you?  Who were you on the phone with?”

Does she remember? Alicia has thought about that phone call with Kalinda many times over the past several weeks.  She wonders why neither she nor Kalinda has initiated any further contact after they were so close to . . . something. Alicia turns away from the memory to look at her daughter. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just . . . you seemed . . . it seemed important.” Grace looks awkward, and Alicia feels a sudden flash of tenderness toward her. She doesn’t understand Grace the way she understands Zach, but sometime that makes her love her daughter all the more.

“It wasn’t important. It was just . . . I was talking to Kalinda.” Alicia wonders why Grace stiffens a little at the name. As far as she knows, Grace and Kalinda have barely spoken to each other since . . .  _since the day Kalinda found her and brought her home.  Since that day more than two years ago, when I broke up with Will for good._ Alicia shivers a little to think of it. The events of that day seemed even more poignant with Will gone forever and Kalinda still not part of her life.

Grace hesitates. “Have you seen Kalinda since . . . since Will?” Her voice is low. Alicia senses the emotion beneath it and wonders about it.

“No, we’ve talked on the phone, but . . . no, I haven’t really seen her. She was at the funeral, of course, but she had to hurry away, and we didn’t talk.” Alicia had wondered about why Kalinda had seemed to be in such a rush that day, why she seemed to be going out of her way to avoid eye contact and conversation. _What’s wrong with us?_ It’s not the first time that Alicia has had this thought. _Why can’t we talk? Is it me, or is it Kalinda?_

Alicia suddenly realizes that Grace is saying something to her. “. . . really think you should.”

“What? Sorry, Grace -- what did you say?” Alicia shakes herself out of her reverie.

Grace looks at her. “I said, I think you should talk to Kalinda. It would be good for you, and it would probably be good for her. She was friends with Will too, wasn’t she?”

Alicia looks at her, puzzled. “She was. How did you know that?”

Grace shrugs. “Well, I just assumed . . . you all used to work together, didn’t you? She’s probably sad, too.” Grace looks as though she wants to say more, but then stops.

Alicia nods. Yes, Kalinda was probably sad, too. Alicia realizes then that she herself has been so caught up in her own grieving that she has not really given enough thought to Kalinda’s. She suddenly feels ashamed that Grace, who does not even know Kalinda, appears to have more empathy for her than Alicia has managed on her own.  She smiles at her daughter.

“You’re right. I’ll . . . I’ll give her a call.  She probably _is_ sad. Thank you, Grace.” Alicia looks up at her daughter, wondering (not for the first time) just exactly what goes on in that mind of hers.  Grace and Kalinda might actually like each other, she thinks suddenly, if they ever were to meet for more than passing minute or two. Alicia can’t help chuckling to herself a little at the unlikely image, and she suddenly feels better than she has since she had lunch with Daniel and had been forced to think about what her post-Peter personal life was actually going to be like.

 


	21. The One Before The End ("The One Percent")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alicia and Kalinda talk on the phone for more than 30 seconds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is practically the end, and spoilers confirm that we won't be seeing a Kalicia scene in tonight's season finale. By my count, that means that it's been a full 31 episodes since Alicia and Kalinda have shared a face-to-face scene, which is beyond ridiculous. At least I'll be able to write a canon-free finale chapter myself, which will be a great relief. I don't plan to write that final chapter for a few weeks, because I need a little distance and because I'd like it to be reasonably satisfying. But I promise I won't take forever about it. Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy this week's prelude to it!

Kalinda freezes when she hears her phone buzzing, knowing without knowing _how_ she knows (how she always knows) that the caller is Alicia. For some reason, it has seemed even more impossible for the two of them to talk to each other after those intense telephone conversations in the week following Will’s death, after Kalinda had been on the verge of flying to Alicia’s apartment in the middle of the night.  Kalinda is not certain whether she had been supremely relieved or wretchedly disappointed when Grace’s return had aborted the plan. Yet she sees that somehow their moment has passed, that the two of them have slipped back into a too-familiar bubble of careful non-communication. This has been their way ever since the original rift, Kalinda realizes: for every tentative step forward, they have always somehow ultimately moved at least five steps back. You didn’t have to be a math genius to see how little future there is in a formula like that one.

Nonetheless, Kalinda clicks “accept” on her phone because she just can’t help herself. She wants to find out why Alicia is calling her.

“Kalinda?” Alicia’s voice is hoarse and tentative. Kalinda feels a flicker of one of her Alicia-feelings that have never quite been extinguished, no matter how bad things have been between the two of them. She wonders how Alicia has been doing, if she has been able to talk to anyone at all about Will.

“Hi.” Kalinda hesitates over the word, thinking that she ought to say more. But she decides instead to pause until she understands more about what Alicia wanted.

“I wanted to thank you for letting me know that Canning had seen the interview.” Alicia sounds awkward and a little confused, and Kalinda can’t blame her for that. She had taken a big risk when she jerked the phone out of Canning’s hand to end his cat-and-mouse game with Alicia before it even had a chance to begin in earnest. She was lucky that Canning needed a good investigator enough that he chose not to fire her on the spot.

“You’re welcome.” Kalinda feels a stab at the words, remembering how Alicia had thanked her for finding Grace, and how she had responded with this same “you’re welcome.” It is hard for her to believe that, two and a half years later, they still are in this place of nothingness. It’s also hard to imagine how such a simple, everyday phrase can wrench her like this.

“Kalinda . . . why? Why did you do it?” Alicia asks this all in a rush, as if needing to get it out before she can change her mind about saying it.

Kalinda shrugs, forgetting for a moment that Alicia cannot see her.  She herself is not quite certain why she couldn’t stand watching Canning have the upper hand over Alicia, even when she rationally knew that none of it would be important in the long run. The urge to protect and defend Alicia is so baked into her being that it sometimes embarrasses her. But since she can’t say any of that to Alicia in any way that would be comprehensible, Kalinda chooses another, less complicated truth to convey. “I don’t like Canning.”

Alicia makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sigh. “I don’t like him either. I’m sorry that you’re working with him.”

“I am, too.” Kalinda hesitates, and then decides to risk edging the conversation into more personal territory. “How are you?”

“I’m . . . I’m better than I was.” Kalinda knows that “better than I was” by no means meant “fine,” and she wonders how much to press, whether to ask more or to pull back.

“I know.” Kalinda shakes herself a bit, since this answer was a bit of a non sequitur.  But Alicia seemed to accept it exactly as Kalinda had meant it.

“Thanks. Are you . . .” Kalinda hears the concern in Alicia’s question, and it cuts into her like a knife.

“I’m . . . better, too. I miss him.” Kalinda has not told anyone just how much she _does_ miss Will, and how utterly alone she has felt since he died.

“Me, too.” Alicia’s voice is choked with sudden tears, and Kalinda feels an ache in her own throat in response.

“Alicia . . . you were everything to Will.  That never changed. It never could.” Kalinda knows that what she is saying is a fundamental, essential truth, but she doubts that Alicia will ever be able to believe it. 

“I . . . wish I had told him that I was planning to leave Lockhart Gardner. I wish I could have . . .” Alicia chokes again, unable to continue.

“You couldn’t. It just . . . it was what it was.” A lame cliché, Kalinda knows, but a true one. She knows Alicia needed to leave the firm, and she doubts it could have happened in a way that would have spared Will his attendant pain and rage at her actions. It was what it was.

“Kalinda . . . I don’t want things to go on like this between the two of us, not after losing Will. We need to talk.” Alicia’s voice is firm, and Kalinda knows just how long she had mentally practiced that sentence before uttering it.  She feels her own heart begin to pound a little.

“I want us to talk.” Kalinda suddenly remembers telling Canning that she wanted to stop playing games, to be upfront, to talk like adults. She realizes all at once that she might not have been talking to Canning when she had said that.

“We need to see each other, face to face. We haven’t done that in . . . I can’t remember when. And, more importantly, I can’t remember _why_.” Alicia suddenly laughs, and the sound is in such contrast to everything else in Kalinda’s life and thoughts that it feels like sunshine and spring after an icy cold winter. Kalinda fights the feeling, not wanting to be lured into happiness only to have it wrenched away yet again. But after a brief struggle, she allows the warmth of Alicia’s laugh to seep into her soul.

“When? When do you want to . . .” _To talk. To . . . end this. To be what they were once again, better than they were._ Kalinda cannot seem to stop her hands from shaking, even as she cautions herself how unlikely it was that they could ever be anything again, much less _more_ than anything, even as the tiny, rational part of her mind is telling her that the risk is not worth that very small chance of payoff.

“I’m really busy with a case this week, and I want us to have time . . . can we meet next weekend for a drink? Maybe at Brando’s?” Alicia’s voice is hesitant, and Kalinda wonders whether she is also remembering that Brando’s was the bar where they’d had their first post-rift drink, a full two years ago now. Kalinda will never forget the sight of Alicia’s swiveling of that bar stool, the sudden openness and warmth of her smile.

“Friday? Is Friday good for you?” Kalinda can’t seem to say anything else, but fortunately nothing else is called for.

“Friday’s good. The kids will be with Peter that weekend, so I can stay out late . . . if we need to do that.” Her voice is suddenly nervous. Kalinda wonders if Alicia is regretting the invitation, and for once she decides not to think about it.

“I’ll see you then. Have a good week, Alicia.” Kalinda clicks off the phone, staring vaguely at nothing at all.

 

 

 

 


	22. The Ending We All Want ("A Weird Year")

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A highly satisfying conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are at last. We had a full season (plus half of last season) with no Kalicia at all, leaving us to our own fan ficky devices to imagine something a little more satisfying. The somewhat wacky ending to this chapter contains a little nod to "Being Human" (a wonderful British import about a friendship between a vampire, a werewolf, and a ghost that ended its four-season SyFy run this year), but not enough of one to rise to the level of an actual crossover. Anyway, comments, as always, are welcome. Thanks for your patience and good humor throughout this long enterprise!

_Friday_. Alicia holds on to that thought like a lifeline. She knows that she should be thinking about other things--Eli’s mad idea that she run for State’s Attorney, the fact that Zach can’t seem to get away from his parents fast enough, Finn Polmar, Peter, Will . . . But none of these things, none of these people, seem to matter right now. Instead, there is just Kalinda, and the prospect of a conversation after so many months (so many years) of avoidance. She is not precisely sure what she feels--anxiety, certainly, with a heavy dose of guilt and a side-sprinkling of longing.  All she knows for certain is that she wants to do this more than she wants anything else.

She and Kalinda have agreed to meet at 7:00 in the evening.  Alicia arrives at 6:40, and Kalinda is nowhere in sight. Alicia is not aware of the fact that she has been holding her breath until the air unexpectedly rushing into her lungs startles her.  The bar is very quiet tonight--odd for a Friday, but much more conducive to talking than some of the crowded, noisy places where she and Kalinda have sat together in the past. Alicia realizes suddenly--how could she have forgotten?--that this bar is actually the last one that she had been to with Kalinda, more than a year and a half ago.  She wonders if Kalinda had remembered, if she had chosen this particular venue for tonight because of it. Alicia recalls ordering two tequila shots, growing increasingly worried about the reasons why Kalinda might have been late. And then Kalinda was suddenly there, beautiful and enigmatic as ever, assuring Alicia that both of them were safe from Nick forever. Alicia was so relieved to see her, so pleased that Nick was finally gone from their lives, that she never asked anything more about it.  _Just like the old days,_ she thinks to herself now.  _Drinking, secrets.  Caring, things unsaid. More drinking._ But right now, Alicia thinks that she would trade anything else in her life for just one more of those maddeningly incomplete evenings. She debates whether or not she should order a drink for Kalinda, the way she had done before. Alicia is still trying to decide when she catches a glimpse of Kalinda entering the bar. She stops breathing for a moment once again. 

Seeing Kalinda hesitating in the doorway, Alicia turns toward her and tries to order her face to look welcoming. She is not sure how well she succeeds, but whatever she manages appears to have the effect of getting Kalinda to move and slip onto the stool beside her.

“Hey.” Kalinda glances at the bartender, calling forth her seemingly magical ability to convey a drink order without the bother of actual words. A shot of tequila appears.  Kalinda looks at Alicia, who nods.  A raised eyebrow from Kalinda, another quick glance, and a second shot glass is placed in front of Alicia as well.  Alicia looks at it vaguely, thinking about how odd her life has become. She downs the shot and revels in the wonderful burning sensation that she hasn’t felt in many months.  Kalinda does the same, closing her eyes for a moment as she drinks.  Alicia looks at her empty glass, wishing she had another. 

Kalinda is the first to speak. “Diane seems happy.” Alicia’s mind goes blank for a moment before realizing that Kalinda is talking about Diane’s impending move to Florrick Agos. She feels a flicker of disappointment--were they going to spend this time talking about _work_? Alicia sometimes wishes that all of it--the State’s Attorney’s office, Lockhart Gardner, Florrick Agos, everything--would just vanish, leaving her alone in a quiet white room with nothing to think about ever again.

But she can’t say any of that, not right now. “Yes. We’re happy, too.” Alicia doesn’t think she actually means it. She likes Diane, who has become one of the fragile tethers that prevent her memories and regrets about Will from floating wordlessly away. But she doesn’t know how she feels about Diane’s coming to work at her firm. What is it going to mean, for her, for Cary, for all of them? How will things change because of it?  _And what about you_? Alicia thinks. _Are you coming, too_?  This, at least, she might manage asking.

“Kalinda . . . you’re welcome to come to us with Diane. We . . . want  you to.” Alicia falters a little on that. She has no idea how Cary would feel about it, not really, but she finds that she really doesn’t care. Because right now, she knows that _she_ wants Kalinda to work with her again--it matters more than anything else, more than being a good partner to Cary.

Kalinda smiles a little in acknowledgment but doesn’t respond directly. “Diane and I have been working well together lately, ever since . . . “ Kalinda’s voice trails off, but Alicia knows exactly what she means. _Ever since we each had a piece of ourselves ripped away. Ever since we realized how much we actually have in common._ Grief can sometimes bind as well as destroy.

Alicia lifts an index finger toward the bartender, who responds by placing another shot in front of her. She looks at it and watches Kalinda down her second shot of the evening. They’re not in sync anymore. She notices suddenly just how tiny, how fragile Kalinda looks right now. Grief doesn’t always bind. She feels a wave of sadness, and Kalinda seems to notice it.

“Alicia . . . what is this?” It’s a simple question, but it’s not simple at all, and Kalinda knows it very well.  What _is_ this? What does she want? What are the two of them doing here, in this bar from the past, sitting next to each other but drinking alone?

She tries to respond honestly for a change. “I’m not sure, not really. I just wanted to see you. I’ve wanted to see you ever since you first called me about Will.” Her voice wavers a little, and she concentrates hard on her little glass of tequila to steady herself.

Kalinda’s face flashes with something approaching softness before turning to her own drink. Alicia feels the radiation of that sudden warmth and feels its abrupt removal even more sharply. She is a little heartsick at Kalinda’s withdrawal--maybe it really is too late for all this. Maybe you can’t ignore people for months and years and have a hope that they’re still there waiting for you when you finally decide you want them back in your life once again. 

But maybe . . . maybe. She tries again. “I think I wanted you here so I could apologize to you.” As soon as Alicia says the words, she knows how true they are. “I’m sorry, Kalinda.”

Kalinda glances at her suddenly, intensely. Alicia sees how surprised she is, although nobody else in the world would have noticed that in her seemingly impassive expression. “You’re sorry?”

“I am. For so many, many things. I’m sorry I was so rigid about you and Peter. I’m sorry I didn’t protect you when you needed it. I’m sorry I didn’t realize just how much you’ve always done for me. I’m sorry I ran away after that night in Minnesota. And I’m sorry that I didn’t help you after Will died, when I knew how much he meant to you, too.” It all comes out in a rush, well before Alicia had time to plan any of it. She’s a little shocked at just how many things she has to apologize for, at the sheer number of words spewing forth, but she knows that she means every one of them.

Kalinda swallows, looking at Alicia with eyes that are just a little too shiny. “You don’t have to . . . “

“But I _do_ have to. You’ve already done it.” Alicia thinks about the several times that Kalinda has apologized to her, knowing just how much each apology must have cost her.  Apologizing to Kalinda should be just as hard, Alicia thinks.  But it’s actually easier than most things have been in the past couple of months, and it leaves her feeling light and free.

Kalinda is smiling, almost as though she cannot stop herself from doing it. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to. Alicia knows that the mood has shifted, that the warmth is back, at least for now. 

“Kalinda . . . I want to start over. We can’t go back, but we _can_ go forward. I need . . . everything in my life is a mess.” Alicia finds herself feeling absolutely safe in confessing this to Kalinda, safer than she feels saying it to anyone else. 

Kalinda is looking at her. “How are you doing with everything?” Her face is reflecting so much concern, so much tenderness that Alicia almost wants to avert her eyes. But she forces herself keep looking at it. Whatever she sees in Kalinda, she is not going to run from it again.

Alicia shakes her head. “I’m . . . I don’t know how I’m doing. I don’t even know what I want. Someone asked me that recently, and I told her that I wanted a happy life, and I wanted to control my fate. But it seems as though every professional decision makes me _less_ happy, not more happy.” Alicia is shocked when she says this, because she had never verbalized it to herself quite this way before. She suddenly thinks that her grief over Will has been distracting her from a generalized unhappiness, one so deep and so real that she has never wanted to think about what it might mean. But she’s thinking about it now.

Kalinda hesitates for an instant before reaching over to take Alicia’s hand. Alicia feels tears prickle at the touch. They sit like that for almost a full minute without saying anything at all.

Alicia breaks the silence. “I just have my work right now. Peter’s gone. Zach is gone. I don’t understand Grace anymore. I haven’t had a real friend since . . .” She doesn’t finish, and she doesn’t have to. 

Kalinda touches her hand again. “You do have one.” Alicia can barely hear her, but it’s a sentence that echoes into her soul nonetheless.

“Can we . . . can do this?” It’s a real question. Is this even possible, no matter how willing both of them might be right at this moment? Has too much happened, too much time passed?

“Yes.” Kalinda sounds as confident as Alicia has ever heard her sound. “We can.” Alicia, feeling a sense of peace more powerful than she has ever known, believes her. She nods and closes her eyes for a moment.

Kalinda hesitates, apparently deciding that she no longer wanted to avoid any of their myriad white elephants. “I’m sorry about you and Peter.”

Alicia can’t help laughing a little at the absurdity of this part of the conversation. “You’re not sorry.  I’m not either, not really. Peter and I . . . it’s complicated, but it’s over.”

Kalinda nods. “He didn’t deserve you.” Alicia is a little shocked by Kalinda’s earnestness. Kalinda is usually anything but earnest.

“Do you want to hear something funny?  I almost went on a date awhile ago. I _did_ go on a sort-of-date, actually, just a lunch. He told me that he works all the time and doesn’t have many friends--I almost felt as though I were out on a date with you!” Alicia meant that to be a joke, but she feels a little heat on her cheeks, and she sees Kalinda flinch just a little bit. She wonders about it for an instant before dismissing it from her mind.

Kalinda is holding up her shot glass.  “Ready?”

Alicia nods, and the two of them clink glasses and down their drinks simultaneously, in harmony once again. She feels a combination of nostalgia and hope as the tequila burns its way down her throat and an oddly familiar tune plays softly in the background. They have done this before, and they will do it again. They are finally on the other side of the darkness.

 

**§§§**

 

“Cut! That’s a wrap!”

Will basks just a little at the cheers of the production crew. It was a great scene, and he knows it. He has been given many scenes since becoming a Director, but this one hit everything that he wanted. He feels proud.

“Not bad.  Not bad at all.” It’s the Producer, smiling at him. 

“You think?” False modesty was never anything that Will could pull off well when he was alive, and he finds it even more difficult now that he . . . isn’t.  He had never paid much attention to religion or talk about the possibility of an afterlife, and nobody was more shocked than he to find out that some of what he had always considered mindless drivel was actually true. Since he, as they say, had “unfinished business,” he was forced to hang around, fiddling in the lives of his friends rather than moving on to a mysterious somewhere. But really, that suited him just fine.  Change is overrated.

The Producer shook his head. “Come on, Will.  You know you nailed it.  All that emotion that you got out of the two of them?  All that love and caring, with the little nod to the possibility of even more at the end? It was great. We all thought so.”

Will can’t help beaming. “You didn’t think playing that Sunday Girl cover of ‘Where Is My Mind?’ was just a little too on-the-nose? I mean, it’s the same song that they heard during the last time they drank together.”

“Well . . . a little indulgent, but you’d earned it by then. And so had they.” 

Will sighs. “They deserve that, and they deserve a lot more. I want them both to be happy. I’m glad that I could help make it happen.” And he was. He can’t stand to think about how much both Alicia and Kalinda have suffered; that suffering is so much more obvious to him now than it ever had been before, when he had been so caught up in his own longings and problems.  This afterlife business has granted him a clarity that he had never possessed before. Everything that had once appeared so complicated is actually surprisingly simple.

The Producer smiles again. “They _will_ be happy.  And so will you. I have good news.  The Academy has voted. You have your Nomination.”

"You mean . . .” Will is certain that he must have heard incorrectly. It can't be . . . 

“You’re moving on.  Your Door is ready.” Will suddenly notices an elevator behind the Producer with a gleaming gold button next to it.

“That’s not a Door.  That’s an elevator.” Will is stunned into literalness, a fact which makes the Producer somewhat impatient. 

“Everyone is given a different Door, one crafted especially for him or her. Are you really surprised that your Door is an elevator?”

On reflection, Will is not a bit surprised. He is, however, afraid--afraid of leaving everyone he loves behind, afraid of what comes next. Change _is_ overrated. He looks at the Producer, who understands everything, who has always been so helpful. The Producer looks at him kindly, gesturing to the gold button. “They’ll be fine, Will.  You have to trust that. It’s time to go.”

Will nods.  The warmth from his last scene has given him the courage he needs to leave them all behind. Alicia and Kalinda will finally have each other. Everything is as it was always supposed to have been. He pushes the button and steps through the elevator doors as they open.

Will turns and gives a little wave. “Take care of them next season.  It’s time they had a good one.” The Producer promises, watching as the elevator doors close on Will Gardner for the last time. It _is_ time, more than time, and he will do all that he can to make it happen.

 

 


End file.
